I saw this play, a new adaptation of Anton Chekhov's classic, in previews several weeks ago, and meant to post about it, because it is magnificent. Unfortunately, life got in the way of doing the post. Now I've learned that its run has been extended until October 28, so I've got my chance to tell you how great I think it is, and urge you, if you're in the New York City area between now and the 28th, to go and enjoy it.
My initial motivation to see it was that my friend Jay O. Sanders (photo) plays the title role. My wife and I have known Jay, and his wife Maryann Plunkett, since our daughter and their son, Jamie Sanders, now having a successful acting career of his own, were friends in elementary school.
I was also attracted by its being directed by Richard Nelson, two of whose Apple family plays, also featuring Jay, along with Maryann, I saw staged at the Public Theater. "Staged" is a misstatement here: Nelson likes to set his plays on a floor with seats surrounding it; the front row of seats is on the same level as the actors. Nelson is a master of intimate family drama, and this "theater in the round" presentation, in which the actors sometimes turn to address the audience directly, makes it all the more intimate. This does very well for Chekhov's play, which has the same intimacy as Nelson's earlier family dramas.
For criticism, I can't do better than Ben Brantley in the New York Times. I want to add a special mention of Yvonne Woods, who plays the part of Vanya's niece, Sonya. The entire cast (Jay, whom Brantley credits with "a career high performance," included) is brilliant, but Ms. Woods anchors the play. Her subtly presented story of a life of unsatisfied longings, endured stoically ("pinched with care" is Brantley's description), seemed to me, despite Vanya's cry from the heart near the play's conclusion, the most eloquent presentation of the tragic circumstances in which all the characters have put themselves. Her centrality is emphasized by the list of characters in the play's program, in which all but her and Astrov, the physician for whose love she unsuccessfully longs, are defined by their relationships to her. She is the only one who can call Vanya "Uncle."
It's late, and given the time difference between here and Ireland (if that's where he's been celebrating his birthday) this may be a belated wish. Still, I think he'll forgive me, if I express another debt of gratitude for all that his music has done for me since that afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts in early September of 1967, when, while savoring my first roast beef with Russian dressing on a bulkie roll (a Boston specialty which I, a newly expat Floridian, had never tried before), I heard "Brown Eyed Girl" on the jukebox.
I've been noting his birthday here for some years, and have always featured clips of him singing his own songs. This year, I'm breaking with that tradition:
Yes, at 72 he had the confidence to cover a Sam Cooke classic, and to do it well.
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was the greatest American composer, conductor, and musician of the second half of the twentieth century. The centenary of his birth was on Saturday.
Below is a clip of "Wrong Note Rag" from Wonderful Town (1953),a tribute to my adopted city, music by Bernstein with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It features a duet between Audra McDonald and Kim Criswell, backed by European Voices with Simon Halsey as Chorus Master, and the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle.
Photo: By Unknown photographer (eBay) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
For years I've been annoyed (not paranoid, but real annoyed, to quote the late Mickey Fletcher) by the Gray Lady's sports scribes' unconcealed belief that the Bronx Bullies rightfully rule the Tri-State Area, and that the Mets, successors to my first love in baseball, the Brooklyn Dodgers, are mere interlopers, worthy only of scorn and relegated to the bottom of the page, "below the fold."
In truth (a notion that still holds water, I hope) the Yanks have won more games, and more rings, than have the Mets in the 56 years that the Mets have existed. Still, the Mets can claim two spectacular World Series victories. The first was in 1969, when they emerged from six years of expansion team hopelessness to amaze (the sobriquet "Amazins" was given by their manager, Casey Stengel, during their maiden, 1962, season for their sometimes mystifying ineptitude) the baseball world with a march to the pennant over the division rival Cubs (featuring the black cat game), and the Braves, followed by a Series victory over the favored Orioles. That victory was credited by some with saving the mayoralty of John Lindsay.
The second came in 1986, when a team that had steadily improved from their 1981 season low point of 41-62 to win 108 regular season games prevailed over a strong NLCS challenge from the Astros, whose pitcher, Mike Scott, was known for his deadly split-finger fastball. Scott was on the mound against the Mets for the opening game on a Wednesday afternoon, so I asked Terri, my secretary, to cover for me while I played hooky to watch the game at the Lion's Head. There were a few stalwarts at the bar, including Frank McCourt, who became a baseball fan that afternoon. When I arrived, I think around the fourth inning, the game was still scoreless and Scott was on the mound. Everyone was quiet. Scott finished the inning and Mets ace Dwight Gooden took the mound. Gooden kept the Houston bats silent, and as Scott retook the mound I decided to check in with the office on the Head's pay phone (remember those?). Terri told me that Bruce, the General Counsel of our company's parent company, had left a message for me to call. As the bar was still quiet, I asked her to patch me through to Bruce. As I was answering his question, a Mets batter ripped a single off Scott, and the bar erupted in cheers. "Are you in the building?" Bruce asked sharply. "No," I replied flatly. I was able to finish answering his earlier question to his satisfaction, so we ended our conversation. The Mets went on to lose that game 1-0, but won their series with the Astros 4-2, which advanced them to the World Series for the third time in their then relatively short history.
The 1986 World Series pitted the Mets against the Yanks' archrivals, the Boston Red Sox, who, after five games had a 3-2 Series lead. Game six was do-or-die for the Mets, and I was watching it at home, alone. The game went into extra innings, and in the top of the eleventh the Sox scored twice. The Mets scored once in the bottom, but there were two outs and I figured the Sox had it in the bag. I decided to go to a bar a few blocks away where I knew my friend Bill, a bank employee known as "Bill the Singer" because he was part of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, would be. Bill was a Springfield, Massachusetts native and, ipso facto, a Red Sox fan, and I thought to congratulate him. Walking to the bar, I heard a commotion coming from a second floor apartment. I later learned that this was when the Sox closer, Bob Stanley, had allowed the tying run to score on a wild pitch. When I got to the bar, I saw lots of people jumping up and down, cheering, and clapping, while Bill stood stock still, his face ashen. "What happened?" I asked him, and he gestured at the TV screen just as it showed a replay of Mookie Wilson's grounder skittering between the legs of Sox first baseman Bill Buckner. This error, which would cloud Buckner's otherwise exemplary career. allowed in the winning run and forced game seven, which the Mets won.
I wish I could forget the Mets' next Series, in 2000, which was a dream setup for them: a "Subway Series" against the Yankees. At last, a chance to erase the second place stigma. It wasn't to be. The Yanks made fairly short work of it, winning four games to one. Game two will always be remembered for the broken bat incident, in which the Mets' Mike Piazza broke his bat fouling a pitch from the Sox pitcher Roger Clemens. The barrel of the bat flew toward Clemens, who grabbed it and flung it toward the first base line, where it almost hit Piazza:
The Mets began this season looking like a reincarnation of the 1986 team. Through most of April, they had the best record in the Majors. Around the end of that month, a reporter suggested that they only needed to play .500 ball for the rest of the season to have a record that would qualify for the post-season. Come May, though, they underwent a Kafkaesque metamorphosis into a simulacrum of the hapless 1962 Mets, who were chronicled masterfully by the late Jimmy Breslin in Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? June was particularly grim, with the Mets posting a 5-21 record and sending them to the bottom of the NL East standings. Injuries, as usual, played a role. Why do the Mets seem unusually injury-prone? I don't know, but I speculated here.
Come July and continuing through this month, though, things began to turn around for the Mets. Friday's Times had a teaser on the top of the Business/Sports section: "Mets on the Upswing?" The story on page 9, by Jay Schreiber, had the headline, "Surprise! The Mets Might Actually Be Getting Better", but by today in the on-line edition it had been changed to "The Mets Are Back to .500 (Just Throw Out the First Half of the Season)". Trust the Times to edit away anything that sounds too enthusiastic about the Mets. In his piece, Schreiber notes some encouraging news, including some good performances by young players and outstanding pitching by Jacob deGrom, despite a 3-1 loss to the Giants in Thursday's game. Wonder of wonders, the story began above the fold. To be fair, the Yanks hadn't played on Thursday, and there was no news about them, nor an exciting shuffleboard tournament, to force the Mets story down.
On Friday the Mets began a three game series at home against the Nationals, pre-season favorites to win the division, with a 3-0 victory. The Times didn't cover the game, but picked up the A.P. story. Once again it was above the fold, though it was squeezed to the right by a longer piece, by the Times' Billy Witz, about the Yanks' come from behind 7-5 win over the struggling Orioles. Saturday brought another Mets win over the Nats, which featured a strong performance by starter Zach Wheeler and put them two games over .500 for the season's second half. Did this keep them above the fold? No. The Times again ran the A.P. piece on the Mets, and buried it under Witz's account of the Yanks' sweeping a doubleheader from the Orioles.
Today the Mets reverted to disastrous form and lost to the Nats 15-0. At least they managed to avoid any serious injuries. Meanwhile, the Yanks completed their sweep of the Orioles with a 5-3 victory. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the Times.
Tomorrow the Mets begin a three game series against the Cubs in Chicago, where they will face Daniel Murphy, who was traded by the Nats a few days ago. We'll get to see if the curse of the ex-Met continues to be effective.
I meant to post something a week ago, but a trip to hospital - fortunately successful - intervened. Although her recording career began years before, the first I remember hearing her was during my first year of law school, 1967 to '68, when my radio was usually tuned to WRKO in Boston. I'm pretty sure the first song of hers I heard was what's become her signature song, Respect. That same year I was impressed by Chain of Fools, captivated by her soaring, Gospel inflected voice, and also by the twangy guitar accompaniment by Joe South.
The song I've decided to feature, though, is Aretha's rendition of Chips Moman's and Dan Penn'sDo Right Woman, Do Right Man:
Hers wasn't the first version of that song I knew. That was the Flying Burrito Brothers' country take, from their first album, The Gilded Palace of Sin. The Burritos were Gram Parsons' and Chris Hillman's post-Byrds group. They also recorded Moman's and Penn's The Dark End of the Street, the best known version of which is by James Carr. There is an amazing version featuring Ry Cooder on guitar, with vocals by Terry Evans, Cliff Givens, and Bobby King.
But I digress. Let's return to the late Queen of Soul, backed by the late King of Southern blues rock guitar, doing a Dylan song made famous by The Band:
Godspeed, Sister Re, and thanks for a musical heritage remarkable for its breadth and depth.
Last summer I took lots of photos on a short vacation that took us to New Hampshire and Cape Cod. I had meant to post photos from that trip, but real life got in the way of blogging. Now, a year late, I've decided to post some of those photos. For some reason, I got several photos of dogs on boats. The one above is on Lake Winnipesaukee, taken from a dock in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.
This was taken from roughly the same location, using a longer zoom.
This is on Halfmoon Lake, taken from the deck of our friends' house.
Bertrand Russell was one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the past century. Although much of his work was devoted to analytical philosophy, particularly to exploring the logical foundations of mathematics, he also wrote and spoke eloquently and with wit about ethical and political matters, and about concerns of everyday life.
As I progress further into my eighth decade of life I, like, I'm sure, many of my contemporaries, spend time reminiscing and sometimes regretting roads not taken. Russell, in his Portraits from Memory and Other Essays, offered this observation:
"Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being."
To my fellow Christians, this may seem perplexing. Loss of individual being doesn't jibe with traditional notions of immortality. It seems, if anything, more like Buddhism. To me, though, the crucial words are "the walls of the ego recede". I believe this to be central to the message of the Gospels; perhaps best summed up in Luke 17:33. Russell was not a Christian, nor a Buddhist, but to me it seems that in this respect his thinking was in concurrence with both traditions (which, I think, have more in common than many believers in either would care to admit.)
I'm indebted for the Russell quotation to Maria Popova's blog Brain Pickings, which I find a reliable source of thought provoking insights. If you follow the link and scroll down, you can subscribe for free. Maria relies on donations to keep up her very valuable work and, if you would like to help, please follow the link provided on her blog.
The photo (public domain; photographer unknown) is of Russell with his children John (born 1921) and Kate (1923). Judging by the children's appearances, the photo was made in the late 1920s when Russell (born 1872) would have been in his mid-fifties.
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber was a true Bohemian; that is, he was born and raised in Bohemia, then a German speaking enclave in what is now the Czech Republic. Most of his musical career, however, was spent in Salzburg, Austria. Biber's music is not as well known today as is that of his near contemporaries J.S. Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Vivaldi, except perhaps among music historians and Baroque aficionados. Nevertheless, he was quite creative, using novel tunings and techniques. His music was the inspiration for this concert, although he is the only Bohemian among the five composers whose works were represented in it.
Repast's performance of Biber's works was at their usual standard of excellence. For this concert, they were joined by violist Jessica Troy, whose playing fit seamlessly in the group's style. None of the works in the concert called for a bassoon, so Stephanie Corwin was afforded an opportunity to travel. Biber's Fidicinium Sacro-Profanum #11 in C minor (the Latin title translates loosely as "Sacred and Profane Fiddle Music") got the program going on a lively note, using a rhythmic technique he called "Harpeggio". His Praeludium from Partita No. 6 (from the Harmonia Artificioso Ariosa was dance music, also very lively. The Mensa Sonora in A minor No. 3 is described in the notes I took during the concert as "swooping - gentle". The Passacaglia in G minor for solo violin gave Amelia Roosevelt a chance to do a star turn, and she handled it with her usual aplomb. My notes include the words "twittering flourishes". The Balletti Lamentabili was in six short parts of which I made the following notes: "(1) contemplative, (2) steady, (3) aspiring, (4) sprightly, (5) emotive, (6) sorrowful".
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer was an Austrian born composer almost all of whose career was spent at the courts of the successive Hapsburg emperors Ferdinand II and III, and Leopold I, the last of whom ennobled him and gave him the rank of Kappelmeister. Unfortunately, this happened just a year before Schmelzer's life was cut short by a plague epidemic. The death of his second emperor occasioned his composition of the Lamento sopra la morte Ferdinand III. My notes on this were: "mournful, lively at end - ascent?" The final movement may express Ferdinand's spirit ascending to the realm of glory. Schmelzer's Polnische Sackpfeifen ("Polish Bagpipes") was given pride of place as the final work in the concert. My notes: "Puff! Puff! Puff! chanting melodies; round with violin and viola, and cello". The cello was played superbly, as always, by Katie Reitman.
Dietrich Buxtehude, whose birthplace and nationality were disputed (Danish or German?) was a superb composer and organist. It's said that J.S. Bach walked 250 miles to hear Buxtehude play. Buxtehude's Toccata in G major for solo harpsichord, BuxWV 165, gave Gabe Shuford his opportunity to break from continuo and show his considerable talent, which he did to full effect.
Gottfried Finger was born in Moravia, now also part of the Czech Republic, but spent much of his musical career in London. His "Sonata Op. 1 No.4 in B flat major" got my notes "ethereal to upbeat."
Henry Purcell was considered the greatest of British Baroque composers. His production of orchestral, chamber, and operatic works during his too short life (1659-1695) was prodigious but also of great quality. Repast performed his Fantasia in A minor for 4 parts; the only "Fantasy" in this concert. My notes: "languid; dreamlike until final".
This was a superb concert. Repast's concert schedule will resume in the fall; I'll keep you advised as soon as details are available.
Oil tankers don't, as a rule, survive for eighty years. The giants that haul crude from oil fields to refineries are reckoned to have a useful life of about twenty years, maybe thirty tops. This isn't about one of those.
The Mary A. Whalen was launched in 1938 at the Red Hook, Brooklyn shipyard of Ira S. Bushey & Sons, as the S.T. Kiddoo. (Mr. Kiddoo was a vice president of Fairbanks Morse; the ship has a Fairbanks Morse engine.) She is all of 172 feet long, and served to haul refined products on coastal routes between New York and New England, as well as carrying bunker fuel to ships in New York Harbor. In 1958, when she was converted from carrying gasoline to carrying fuel oil for home heating or for ship bunkering, her name was changed to Mary A. Whalen. An old maritime superstition has it that changing a ship's name brings bad luck. Mary had bad luck on Christmas day, 1968 when she went aground off the Rockaways. This led to a Supreme Court decision that had considerable effect on maritime law.
Mary was taken out of service in 1994. Instead of going for scrap, she was bought by a maritime services firm that used her as a dock and office. In 2006 she was acquired by PortSide New York a not-for-profit organization headed by my friend Carolina Salguera (photo above). PortSide fixed Mary up, secured a berth for her near her Red Hook birthplace, and in 2011 succeeded in having her listed in the National Registry of Historic Places.
For Mary's eightieth birthday, PortSide invited artists aboard. I found Janice McDonnell (photo above) working on a painting of the giant gantry cranes that load and unload container ships at the Red Hook Container Port, a last vestige of ocean going cargo shipping in New York City, almost all of which has moved to New Jersey, and whose demise has ben predicted for some time but which, so far, has survived.
For an account of an earlier party on the Mary A. Whalen, featuring folk music, see here
The Mets won their season opener, at home, today, beating the Cardinals 9-4. I was at work while they were playing, so all I know is the score and, from their website, that Syndergaard got ten Ks, although giving up all of the Cards' four runs. The bullpen, evidently, was strong.
This happy news was clouded by the loss of a former Mets great, Rusty Staub (photo), a fearsome slugger and generous humanitarian. Adieu, le Grand Orange/
Some wag -- probably a frustrated clarinet or English horn player -- once defined the oboe as "an ill wind that nobody blows good." That gag was put to rest at the Repast Baroque Ensemble's "Dresden Fireworks" concert at First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn Heights on Friday, March 2, which featured guest oboist Geoffrey Burgess (photo). Mr. Burgess ably demonstrated his mastery of the instrument, as well as its range and versatility. Repast's regular crew --Amelia Roosevelt on violin, Stephanie Corwin on bassoon, Katie Reitman on cello, and Gabe Shuford on harpsichord -- were also on top of their game.
As the title suggests, the playlist was of works by composers who were active at the Dresden court of the electors of Saxony and Polish kings during the baroque era -- the early 18th century -- with one exception. That was Vivaldi, who never visited Dresden, but whose music was greatly admired there. The others were: Johann Friederich Fasch; Francesco Maria Veracini (whose stormy engagement in Dresden ended with his self-defenestration from a third story window, fracturing a leg and hip); Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach; and Jan Dismas Zelenka.
The first piece on the program, Fasch's Sonata in F Major for Violin, Oboe, Bassoon, and Continuo, begins with the bassoon playing solo, then joined by the oboe, violin and continuo (cello and harpsichord) in a lush, romantic series of variations. The second movement features lively interplay among the bassoon, oboe, and violin. The third is contemplative, with the oboe dominant, and the final movement is sprightly.
The Vivaldi Sonata in C Minor for Oboe and Continuo begins with a mournful slow march, begun by the bassoon, then joined by the oboe. By contrast, the second movement is upbeat, with the oboe leading from the start. The third is restful, but gave Mr. Burgess the opportunity to demonstrate the oboe's range, and the frenetic fourth movement allowed him to show his virtuosity to the fullest.
Ms. Roosevelt described Francesco Maria Veracini as "certifiably crazy." The first movement of his Sonata in E Minor for Violin and Continuo begins at a loping pace, then picks up to a fast canter, then back to a slower lope. The second is dreamlike, with Ms. Roosevelt's violin carrying the mood superbly. Her violin is decisive in the third, and final, movement, which is stormy, perhaps reflecting the composer's inner turmoil.
Fasch's Sonata in C Major for bassoon and continuo gave Ms. Corwin and her instrument an opportunity to be in the foreground. The first movement is mellow, a quality associated with the bassoon, but the second is bouncy, allowing Ms. Corwin to demonstrate the instrument's range. The third is reflective, with the lower range dominant. The fourth is playful and rapid, showcasing Ms. Corwin's dexterity.
Just as Ms. Corwin got her star turn thanks to Fasch, Mr. Shuford got his with WF Bach's Fantasia in A Minor for Harpsichord. Each note seemed to race from the keyboard to the string to the sounding board in an effort to beat the one before it. A bravura performance.
Before this concert, I was ignorant of the works of the Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka. His Trio in B-flat Major No. 3, for Oboe, Violin, Bassoon, and Continuo convinced me that I need to hear more. The first movement is languid, with the instruments seeming to perform a slow dance. In the second, the bassoon picks up the pace, followed by lively interplay between oboe and violin. The third is pensive, giving Mr. Burgess another chance to show the oboe's range. The last movement starts with a duet between violin and bassoon, then the oboe joins in a rollicking finale that had me wanting to dance in the aisle.
Throughout, Ms. Reitman's cello, along with Mr. Shuford's harpsichord, provided a strong and reassuring sonic base over which the other musicians performed.
Repast's next concert is titled "Bohemian Fantasy" and will include compositions by Biber, Schmelzer, Purcell, and an original work by Repast. It will feature guest violist Jessica Troy. Performances will be at 8:00 PM on Friday, May 4 at the McKinney Chapel, First Unitarian Church, 119 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, and at 8:00 PM on Saturday, May 5 at Advent Lutheran Church, 2504 Broadway (at 93rd Street), in Manhattan.
James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, reckoned one of the most difficult books to read, took its title and a tiny bit of its narrtive from an Irish comic ballad, author unknown, first heard in the 1850s. It tells the story of a bricklayer who, having had "a drop of the craythur" before work, falls from his ladder and dies. At his wake, "a row and a ruction" starts, until whiskey spills on his corpse. This revives him.
I heard the song first as "New Finnegans Wake" on a now out of print Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem vinyl album "Recorded Live in Ireland." What was "new" about it was Liam Clancy's announcement that, to introduce the song, his brother Tom would read the entire Joyce novel. Tom then read these connected excerpts from the first few pages:
Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand, freemen’s mau-rer, lived in the broadest way immarginable in his rushlit toofar — back for messuages before joshuan judges had given us numbers or Helviticus committed deuteronomy. ... During mighty odd years this man of hod, cement and edi-fices in Toper’s Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the banks for the livers by the Soangso. ... A waalworth of a skyerscape ... entowerly, erigenating from next to nothing, ... with a burning bush abob off its baubletop and with larrons o’toolers clittering up and tombles a’buckets clottering down.
Of the first was he to bare arms and a name: Wassaily Boos-laeugh of Riesengeborg. ... Hahahaha, Mister Finn, you’re going to be fined again! ... Hohohoho, Mister Funn, you’re going to be Mister Finnagain! ,,, But Dimb! He stot-tered from the latter. Damb! he was dud.
There's no video available of this version of the song. Here are the Clancys doing it without Tom's introduction, but with a preferatory explanation of how the song inspired Joyce:
On May 6, 1954 I was eight years and not quite two months old. My parents and I were preparing for a European vacation before returning to the U.S., as my father's tour of duty in England was ending. The next day, I looked at a newspaper and saw a photo of man with long, flowing hair running toward a finish line alone. The headline said he was Roger Bannister, and that he was first (since records had been kept) to run a mile in less than four minutes.
I knew roughly how long a mile is; I'd been told that it was a mile from the railroad station to the paper mill in my mother's hometown, Tyrone, Pennsylvania, where she and I had sojourned with my grandmother for several months before joining my father in England. It wasn't a great distance to walk; I'd done it once. It did seem to me a long way to run. Like most kids, I ran a lot, but in short bursts, either playing tag or what we call soccer and my English schoolmates called football.
For some reason that image of Bannister running alone to the finish line remained engraved in my memory. As I grew older, I began running on my own. In my senior year of high school, I would run in the morning before breakfast and in the evening after supper, following a course through our neighborhood that may have been a good half mile. Looking back, I regret not having tried out for my school's track team. At the time, I was shy about pitting myself against competition, fearing I might not be as good as I hoped.
Roger Bannister, since 1975 Sir Roger, died Saturday at the age of 88. His New York Times obituary tells much that I didn't know about his later life. When he broke the record, he was a medical student. Not long after, he left competitive running to devote himself to a successful medical career. He didn't entirely leave the world of sports, serving for three years as chairman of the British Sports Council and for seven as president of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Recreation. For three years, he was head of Pembroke College, Oxford.
How could I pass up a play that had as its author and sole performer, and as its director, men I had known since our children had all been in elementary school together? I got to know Jay O. Sanders, the director, and his wife, Maryann Plunkett because my daughter, Liz, and their son, Jamie, became close friends. I didn't know Robert Galinsky well at the time, which was my loss. During conversation after the play, we recalled our connection, which I now wish had been closer.
I saw the play in November, when it was at the Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village. There were only two performances left in its run there, and I hoped to write it up before it ended. Unfortunately, work and other responsibilities prevented that. I'm now delighted that Mr. Galinsky has notified me, by e-mail, that there will be more performances, on Friday evenings January 26 through April 13, in a new venue, the East Village Playhouse.
The play shows Mr. Galinsky to be highly skilled both as a writer and as an actor. Alone on stage, with a backdrop of artworks depicting New York street scenes by Daphne Arthur and a musical score by Deep Singh, he brings to life five distinct characters -- four men and one woman -- and makes us see them as individuals, each with a distinct background and story. We see their bonds and their conflicts, sometimes sharp and loud, but also the love that sustains them. Most of all, we see that the circumstances that put them on the streets are not "bad choices" but simply bad luck.
I cannot recommend this enough. Tickets for for the January 26 and February 2 performances are sold out, but tickets for the remaining performances may be purchased here.
In the clip below, Mavis Staples sings a song that's perhaps more timely now than since the years leading up to the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. The music is accompanied by a still photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we celebrate today.
2017 was a year of many losses. The Grace Church community suffered the loss of several long standing members. Ann Gaffney was an artist whose paintings of local scenes decorated greeting cards and calendars; her last calendar is shown at the top of this post. Her residence in a Hicks Street brownstone was a salon where she frequently entertained gatherings of friends. On one occasion, we were treated to a recital by a young Danish operatic soprano who was staying in Ann's downstairs apartment during her brief residency in New York. Other congregants who are greatly missed are Patrick Owen Burns, Sr.; Bill Meade; and Bill Newbury.
From the world of stage and screen, I noted the loss of Brooklyn Heights native Mary Tyler Moore. Among others I should have are Dick Gregory
and Don Rickles
Erratum: the deaths of my neighbors Dorothy Azouni and Lillie DeBevoise seemed so fresh in my mind that I mistakenly included them in this year's remembrances. In fact, they died in 2016 and were included in my 2016 Remembrances.
According to Joel Cohen's notes accompanying the Erato CD, the source of this delightful song is "The Finest of the Wheat: Hymns New and Old for Missionary and Revival Meetings and Sabbath-Schools (Chicago 1890), Geo. D. Elderkin, arr." This is an example of "the revival hymns, with their simple, keyboard-derived harmonies and rollicking refrains" that "displaced many a genuine folksong." Cohen goes on to note:
The opening phrase of this one, published in 1890, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Going Home theme of Dvořák's New World Symphony, composed circa 1893. It is tempting to see the similarity as more than coincidental: was Dvořák in fact familiar with this song? Could he have been reluctant to acknowledge his debt to such a lowbrow source as this?
Anyway, here's the song:
"Lowbrow" or not, I love it. For comparison, here's the second, largo, movement of Dvořák's Ninth Symphony, From the New World, as performed by the New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel conducting. The Going Home theme begins at about 0:40 with the solo English horn:
My first exposure to this exquisite piece of music was on the Boston Pops/Arthur Fiedler LP album Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music, which my parents bought when I was about nine. As I recall, the liner notes claimed that the Going Home theme was based on a "Negro spiritual." In fact, it isn't. As American Music Preservation tells the story, a "spiritual" with the title Goin' Home, was written by Dvořák's student, William Arms Fisher, and set to the tune of Dvořák's theme. Here's a rendition by the incomparable Paul Robeson:
Getting back to the question: was Dvořák influenced by "Jesus, the Light of the World"? To my ear, there's a similarity, but not a convincing one. Perhaps Dvořák heard the song and the progression of notes stuck in his memory without a reference to its source. As likely as not, though, as the American Music Preservation piece linked above suggests, it was based on some half-remembered folk theme from Dvořák's native Bohemia. Perhaps, too, he simply made it up.
Mel Tillis, who died today at 85 was a talented singer and prolific songwriter (over 1,000 songs written).
He is one of ten country musicians to have been awarded the National Medal of Arts -- the photo shows him accepting it from President Obama -- and so joins Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Ralph Stanley.
The clip above shows Mel singing "Coca Cola Cowboy," a song that was featured in the movie Every Which Way But Loose, as performed at the Grand Ole Opry in 2009.
The Houston Astros have won their first World Series championship, prevailing at the end of a thrill packed seven game marathon. I began the Series with no particular rooting interest. If my Mets aren't involved, as they certainly weren't this year, my default has usually been to root for the National League team. This is partly because the Mets are NL, and mostly because of my dislike of the designated hitter rule. I make exceptions for two American League teams: the Red Sox, out of spousal loyalty, and the Rays, out of loyalty to my old home city, even though I left it long before they existed (of course, I wouldn't root for either of these over the Mets; when the Red Sox and Mets play I keep very quiet at home).
This year, presented with the Dodgers vs. the Astros, I chose the Astros. Part of it is that I've never quite forgiven the Dodgers, who were my first love in baseball, even though I lived far from Brooklyn at the time, for leaving the borough that has been my home for longer than anywhere else in my peripatetic life. Part of it is also my memory of the Dodgers derailing the Mets' shot, in 1988, at a second NL pennant in three years; especially the memory of Davey Lopes loping around the bases with his right index finger pointed up.
As for the Astros: well, they were an NL team within recent memory. They had never won a Series championship, thereby appealing to my underdog fetish. More importantly, having visited there several times, I came to like Houston. It's a lively, very diverse city with an active arts scene, and the source of some great blues and R&B (remember Archie Bell and the Drells?) And, as a friend and Red Sox fan put it after the 'Stros beat the Sox in the ALDS, "Houston needs something this year." Also, for reasons stated in a footnote here, which I'll repeat here:
I love Texas. Yes, I love it in spite of its perhaps greater than average quotient of jingoistic and ultra-fundamentalist nutjobs. I love it for the likes of Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, and Molly Ivins, as well as for having gotten drunk a few times with Kinky Friedman (who could sometimes be an asshole, but was always interesting) and Jim Hightower (who was always a gentleman, but never dull), and for having (at a fundraiser for Jim at the old Lone Star Cafe on 5th Avenue, when he was running for Chair of the Texas Railroad Commission) danced the "Cotton-Eyed Joe" with Cissy Farenthold and twenty or so other of her nearest and dearest friends. I love it for Terry Allen, Archie Bell and the Drells, Asleep at the Wheel, the Austin Lounge Lizards, the Big Bopper, Guy Clark, Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Freddy Fender, Nanci Griffith, Carolyn Hester, Adolph Hofner, Buddy Holly, Lightnin' Hopkins, Flaco Jimenez, Janis Joplin, the Light Crust Doughboys (especially John "Knocky" Parker), Augie Meyer, Mouse and the Traps, Doug Sahm, Joe Tex, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Townes Van Zandt, Willie and Waylon and Jerry Jeff, and Bob Wills. I love it for Larry McMurtry. I love it for having spent a couple of formative years in San Antonio when my dad was stationed there in the Air Force, where my Pennsylvania bred mom learned to buy fresh tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, and serve them to us for dinner once a week, and where my fourth birthday present was a Billy the Kid outfit from Joske's.
Yes, I love Texas; not that I don't love California, where I have ancestral roots. That's another story, though.
Antoine Dominique Domino Jr., best known as Fats Domino, died today at the age of 89. Of African and Creole ancestry, he was born and raised in New Orleans' predominantly Black Ninth Ward, but his speech, and singing, showed a trace of the "Irish Channel" sound brought to the Crescent City in the nineteenth century by immigrants from Dublin, whose compatriots imparted similar sounds to Brooklynese.
If asked to name an Ur-source for rock 'n' roll, I'd go for New Orleans. Fats and friends took the street chants of the Mardi Gras "Indian Tribes" indoors to bars, adding piano and sometimes horns, and created a new kind of music with a driving beat. The sound migrated west, where it influenced Texas blues artists like Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and north to Memphis, where it mixed with Texas and Delta blues and Appalachian ballads and, as they say, the rest became history.
The clip above is of "The Fat Man," Fats' first hit, which charted in 1950. It was the start of something very big.
Two weeks ago my wife and I attended a concert presented by the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, featuring performances of string quartets by Haydn (C major, Op. 20, No. 2), Beethoven (F major, Op. 59, No, 1, "Razumovsky"), and Dvořák (image at left) (F major, Op. 96 "American"). The musicians were David McCarroll and Carmit Zori on violin, Dimitri Murrath on viola, and Julia Lichten on cello. Their performance of each quartet was superb.
I had heard the Beethoven before, and probably the Haydn, but the Dvořák was new to me. Ms. Zorit's introduction to the piece tweaked my interest, as she said the last two movements contain references to two fascinations I share: birds (a fairly new one) and trains (perhaps my most ancient, for the reason explained in my brief bio in the right hand column). Here's the third movement, which Ms. Zorit said begins with the strings imitating the song of the scarlet tanager (if you follow the link and click on "Sound" you can hear a recording of the bird's song, and decide if you think Dvořák captured it):
The clip above is by Seraphina, at the 2007 Bowdoin International Music Festival. It's from the YouTube library of Seraphina member Caeli Smith.
Here's the fourth movement; I think the train reference is obvious:
The "American" quartet is a product of Dvořák's residence during the summer of 1893 in the Czech-American community of Spillville, Iowa. He didn't compose what is perhaps his best known piece, his Ninth Symphony, "From the New World," while there, but it was inspired by what he heard during his time in the U.S. Its Second, Largo Movement, played below by the Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conducting, is one of the first pieces of classical music I heard, and one I have cherished ever since:
If anyone asks me what pro sports teams I root for, I'll say I back all New York teams whose names end in "ets" or "ders" or "ty." (Soccer fans: I'm sorry. My loyalty there, such as it is, lies with London's Arsenal.) My Mets fandom is explained here. My Jets enthusiasm goes back to Super Bowl III, which happened during my second year of law school. I watched it in the room of a neighbor, Mike, who had the only TV on my dorm floor. The moment the final buzzer sounded, Mike shut the TV off. Asked why, he said, "I can't stand to hear Howard Cosell say, 'Broadway Joe Namath, the New York Jets, and the American Football League all came of age today.'" As for the Nets and Islanders, I'm not a great basketball or hockey fan, but they both play in Brooklyn, my home borough. The Liberty, so far as I know, are the only women's pro basketball team in town.
One thread that runs through all these loyalties is that they are, with the exception of the Liberty, to teams that are less established than their in-town rivals. Starting with the Brooklyn Dodgers, I've consistently backed underdog teams. This is, I think in large part, because growing up as an Air Force brat who had to relocate several times in childhood, I came to see myself as an outsider, always trying to find a way in. Of course my Dodgers won in 1955, though they lost to the Yanks in '56, a series marked by Yankee pitcher Don Larsen's perfect game. My Mets won in '86, but have yet to win a Series since, and lost to their only one with the Yanks in 2000.
While I root for New York's underdog teams, though, I don't actively despise any of the "establishment" teams -- the Giants, the Knicks, or the Rangers -- except for the Yankees. Why? My disdain for the Yankees -- which I hasten to add doesn't extend to individual players -- didn't begin until George Steinbrenner took charge. From my father, I inherited an extreme distaste for, as he put it, "people with over-inflated egos." George fit that description almost as well as the current occupant of the White House.
George is gone, and his inheritors seem much less offensive. I still smart from the fact that the New York Times always gives the Yanks top billing and can't seem to do a story about the Mets that doesn't emphasize something negative. Still, I think it may be time to stop hating the Yanks. Having just checked the score, I see they lost Game Seven, and so will not get the pennant nor go to the World Series this year. I'll root for the Astros in the Series (I lost any residual loyalty to the Dodgers many years ago) because, as a friend who is a Red Sox fan put it when the Astros beat the Sox in the ALDS, "Houston needs something this year."
Of course, I will keep on being a suffering Mets fan.
At the beginning of this season I facetiously posted here that the Mets were in first place in their division. This was after one game , when all teams were either 1-0 (the Mets, along with the Nationals, who would go on to win the NL East, and the Phillies, who would be the last place division finishers) or 0-1. The Mets would finish the season in fourth place in the East, the worst they've done in several years. Two years ago they won the National League Pennant, but lost the World Series to the Royals. In 2016 they tied with the Giants for the wild card, but lost the one game playoff.
Going into this season, the consensus was that the Mets were serious contenders, along with the Nats. What happened? In a word, injuries. All of the vaunted starting rotation except de Grom went onto the DL at one time or another, along with important relievers. Pitching took the worst of it, but hitting, fielding, and catching were also affected.
Why? I've ventured a reply here. Is it true that injuries had a greater effect on the Mets than on other teams? According to this site they were more affected by injuries than any other MLB team during the 2017 season.
Can they do better next year? They'll have a new manager, some new players, and maybe some of their present starters, both on the mound and the field, will be gone. Others may return to top form and manage to avoid injury. There are too many unknowns to try to make a prediction.
The worlds of jazz, country, and rock music have lost many great performers this year -- in chronological order I've noted here the deaths of Al Jarreau, Chuck Berry, J. Geils, Gregg Allman, and Glen Campbell -- but I've yet to see an outpouring of grief on Facebook as tsunami-like as that following the death yesterday of Tom Petty. This, I think, is testimony to Petty's musical charisma as well as his adaptability over many years, not to changing fashions in rock but to new styles he created. It's also, sadly, testimony to his death at the age of 66, when he was still near the peak of his game.
I first heard him sometime in the late 1970s on WNEW-FM, the then AOR station that ended and began most of my days. I'm pretty sure the first song of his I heard -- at least the first I remember -- was "Listen to Her Heart":
I love the song for its triumphantly defiant lyrics and for its Byrds-like jangling guitars. The clip above is from a concert in Tom's home town, Gainesville, Florida, in 2006. Despite the passage of almost thirty years and some band personnel changes, the song is done just as it was recorded.
Tom had a long and fruitful musical association with Stevie Nicks, as exemplified by the clip below, from the same 2006 tour, of them doing "Stop Dragging My Heart Around":
I remember reading, years ago, that when Stevie met Tom's then wife Jane and asked her how they had met, Jane said, "I met Tom at the age of seventeen." Stevie mistook Jane's North Florida Cracker rendition of "age" for "edge," and it inspired this song:
I almost missed it. Indeed, from the point of view of Van's hometown, Belfast, I did. It's already September 1 there. Anyway, thanks for so many years of splendid music, which, for me, started at the beginning of September, 1967, in a little lunch spot called Hazen's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I'd just arrived to start law school, when someone played "Brown Eyed Girl" on the jukebox. Thanks also to my friend Adrian Rice (not to be confused with a poet by the same name who, like Van, was born in Belfast) for alerting me to what I almost missed.
The clip below is a recent one, of Van singing "Transformation," a song from his latest album, Roll with the Punches. I love the way Van can't resist playing orchestra conductor before he takes the mike.
Glen Campbell died yesterday at 81, after many years' struggle with Alzheimer's. He had a fine, clear tenor voice, but his greatest talent was as a guitarist. Before going solo, he was part of the Wrecking Crew, a group of exceptional L.A. studio musicians whose contributions can be heard on many hits from the 1960s.
A favorite of mine will always be his rendition of John Hartford's "Gentle On My Mind"; in the clip below he shows his skill as a picker as well as a singer:
Another is "Less Of Me,"a song he recorded with Bobbie Gentry. I couldn't find a live video of him singing it with her, but I did find one with another great woman singer, Jackie DeShannon:
You may (if you're as old as I am) recall that when Brian Wilson took ill during a Beach Boys tour, Glen filled in for him on bass (not his usual instrument) and high vocals (higher than his normal), to surprisingly good effect. Glen later couldn't resist adding a Beach Boys medley to his repertoire. In the clip below, please feel free to slide across his (I think) pedestrian covers of "Good Vibrations" and "California Girls" to get to 4:12, where the "Fun! Fun! Fun!" begins, and doesn't stop until the end.
The backing band in the Beach Boys clip above is the Jeff Dayton Band, and the concert was at -- would you believe? -- the North Phoenix Baptist Church, in 1998.
In April of 1969 I was in my second year of law school, and visited my parents in Tampa during spring break. Paging through the Tampa Tribune I saw a review of a concert at a local venue. The headline act was a prominent Motown group, but the reviewer wrote that the loudest cheers came for the warm-up group, "the Allman Brothers, whom no one had heard of."
I likely would have forgotten this, but back in Cambridge in May I heard a local DJ announce a forthcoming Velvet Underground concert "with the Allman Brothers." Not long after that I began to hear their early recordings on "underground" or "AOR" stations like WBCN in Boston and WNEW in New York, to which I moved after graduation. I missed their great concert at Fillmore East in March of 1971, At the time I was more into the folk-into-country of the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and their progeny, especially Gram Parsons and Neil Young.
The death of Duane Allman late in 1971 sent the group into a less hard-edged blues, more country influenced direction, led by by Dickey Betts. My first Allmans album was Brothers and Sisters, and my favorite song "Ramblin' Man," a Betts composition with a hook for me in the line, "I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus rollin' down Highway 41." That road was the umbilical cord connecting Tampa to Atlanta, and ultimately to Detroit, which is why, entering Tampa on 41 from the north, one of the first things you would see was the Detroiter Motel.
Gregg was largely responsible for the breakup of the group in the late 1970s, caused in part by his distraction into Hollywood glitz following his marriage to Cher, and in large part by the Scooter Herring case. Still, he was instrumental in reuniting the group on several occasions, and did some very good work solo and in other groups.
I'm closing with a video, from Gregg's channel, of a live performance he did on January 14, 2014 in Macon, Georgia, where the Allmans had made their home in the early 1970s. The song is "Ain't Wastin' Time No More," written by Gregg, which was the opening track on Eat a Peach, the Allmans' first album following Duane's death. Gregg's performance is augmented by splendid solos on sax by Jay Collins, and on guitar by Scott Sharrard.
This weekend we remember the men and women whose lives were lost in defense of our nation and its allies. Among these have been many merchant mariners, whose service was essential in delivering ammunition, fuel, equipment, food, and medical supplies to our troops, and those of our allies, fighting overseas. It is estimated that, in World War II, as many as 9,300 died at sea or later succumbed to wounds inflicted when their ships were attacked by enemy submarines or aircraft, or struck mines.
American Victory (photo above) is one of the few surviving "emergency" cargo ships from World War II. She has been preserved in my old home city, Tampa, by the American Victory Ship Mariners Memorial Museum. Her dock is at 705 Channelside Drive, near the Florida Aquarium. I visited her there several years ago. Paul Schiffman, a retired Merchant Marine master who tended bar at the Lion's Head, for many years my favorite Greenwich Village saloon, served as a mate on her maiden voyage in 1945, delivering supplies to U.S. forces in the Pacific. At a memorial gathering for Paul, who died in 2011, I learned that Mike Wholey, another Lion's Head regular, had served as a mate on American Victory's last voyage in service, delivering supplies to our troops in Vietnam.
In 1988, pursuant to a court order, merchant mariners who served during World War II were granted veteran status, allowing them to receive discharge papers and medical benefits.
Today, April 25, would have been Ella Fitzgerald's 100th birthday (I'm getting in very late, now), and I must remember her as one of the greatest jazz and pop singers of all time. Not only that, but someone who is remembered by many who worked with her as unpretentious, low maintenance; indeed, sweet. Just like her music. In the clip below, she sings "Mack the Knife," by Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill, and in it gives credit to two singers who did it before: Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin. Enjoy!
I first knew of the J. Geils Band some time after my arrival in Cambridge for law school. Looking through one of the local "what's happening" papers, I saw they were the featured act at a nearby venue, probably the Boston Tea Party. My law school routine that year was such that I didn't get out to sample the music scene, which was splendid at the time. I missed J.Geils, as well as folk icons like Joni Mitchell and Tom Rush, who were regulars at Cambridge spots like Club 47.
The first time I heard J. Geils was sometime in the early 1970s, while I was in the Army. I was visiting a friend, and he played the album, the cover of which is shown above. I'm not sure why "live" is in scare quotes, as it was recorded live in concert at Detroit's Cinderella Ballroom on April 21 and 22, 1972. It includes some able and lively R&B - Smokey Robinson's "First I Look at the Purse" - and blues - Otis Rush's "Homework" and John Lee Hooker's "Serves You Right to Suffer." The first song that really grabbed my attention was "Hard Drivin' Man,"written by Geils and the band's lead vocalist Peter Wolf. It's straight-ahead, over-the-top, hit-the-road rock. Introducing the song, Wolf got the crowd worked up with, "You've heard of the Boston Funky? [Yeah!] You've heard of the Philly Freeze? [Yeah!] We've got the Detroit Demolition now! [Pandemonium]."
The piece de resistance for me, though, was the final cut, a segue of "Juke Joint Jimmy's" (a pseudonym used by members of the band for joint compositions) "Cruisin' for Love" and "Looking for a Love" (a cover of a Valentinos hit from 1962) the latter of which breaks into pure frenzy. The clip above shows the band doing "Looking for a Love" at the Oakland Coliseum on March 22, 1980. Wolf, in the striped shirt, demonstrates his acrobatic as well as his vocal talent. Geils plays what appears to be a Gibson Flying "V" (or perhaps a Jackson King or ESP) guitar.
J. Geils was found dead in his house in Groton, Massachusetts last Tuesday. According to his Boston Globe obit he was found by police on a "well being check," indicating he may have been in poor health for some time, and lived alone. He separated from his wife, Kris, in 1999, but they remained friends. He was born in New York City in 1946 (also the year of my birth) and raised in New Jersey, where his father was an engineer at Bell Labs, and a jazz and blues enthusiast. It was while Geils was a student at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute - evidently he considered following his father's career path - that he met bassist Danny Klein and harmonicist Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz, who shared his father's love of the blues and who, along with him, formed the nucleus of what became the J. Geils Band.
The band quickly became a staple of the Boston music scene in the late 1960s and '70s, but didn't achieve national fame until the early 1980s with a hit single, "Love Stinks," followed by a hit album, Freeze Frame, featuring their only chart-topping release, "Centerfold." The band broke up in the mid 1980s, but reunited on several occasions, mostly for benefit concerts. Later in life, Geils returned to hhis jazz and blues roots. In 1994 he and Salwitz formed a group called Bluestime that covered works by great Chicago blues artists that had inspired both of them. Geils' last venture into recording was about 2005, when, as Jay Geils, he and Gerry Beaudoin performed as the "Kings of Strings," doing jazz guitar pieces in the style of greats like Charlie Christian, whom Geils had long admired.
I was born on March 19, 1946 in a city renowned in Vaudeville humor, Altoona Pennsylvania. My dad was in the military, so we moved many times in my childhood. We lived in rural England from the time I was five until eight, and I began my formal education in a county council school, where my being American is likely all that saved me from having my bottom caned.
I graduated from the University of South Florida (1967) and Harvard Law School (1970). Since then, apart from two years' active Army duty, I have lived in New York City.
In 1991 I married Martha Foley, an archivist. Our daughter, Elizabeth Cordelia Scales, was born in 1993 and now lives in Philadelphia.
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