Skeletons in The Closet

We all have skeletons in the closet. 

Some of us fear that someone who knew us long ago will try to blackmail us with our high school yearbook photos. For others, like me, it's being forced to reveal some of the cringe-worthy music I used to listen to. 

The cringe factor...

OK... I can look anyone straight in the eye and say, "Guess what? I found In Through The Out Door yesterday, while poking around my old bedroom. Isn't that cool?"

But I wouldn't add, "Yeah, it was sandwiched between Bad Company and Toto."

Why do I feel fine revealing that I used to listen to Led Zeppelin but ashamed to admit the same about Bad Company and Toto?  

I am in no hurry to come clean about the Judas Priest, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath, or Lynyrd Skynyrd records I found.  But I'm happy to mention Grace Jones, The Replacements, Elvis Costello, and David Bowie. Why?

 I also found Decade by Neil Young, which I still love all these years later.  I am happy to hold up album covers by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, The Ramones, and The New York Dolls. But not ACDC, (yes, I am guilty of possessing Back in Black...)

Why value one set of records I owned in high school, while another causes me to hang my head in shame? 

Truth be told, I never really got "metal". It always seemed really loud and really stupid. I'm relieved to say that you'll never find Ratt, Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Bon Jovi, Guns 'n' Roses, nor any one hit wonder hair band in the wreckage and refuse of my adolescence.

And I admit that I once really liked the Grateful Dead, who for me represent: Road trips down Highway 101, fields of violet wildflowers, the Oregon Country Fair, a marigold colored sun, painted VW microbuses, and Indian beaded anklets tinkling whenever you walk.  

But they also represent: Bad hygiene, like grimy white people with stanky dreadlocks (that I would think twice about touching without hand sanitizer), muddy hot springs reeking of sulfur, chokable amounts of patchouli, and Soysage. (blechh!)

Even when I realized, years later, how majorly out of tune Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Jerry Garcia always were, The Dead were never sent into my closet. 

Owning the album Skeletons in the Closet wasn't a type of foreshadowing, although their long aimless noodling and anemic guitar jams didn't add to The Dead's cache, but I still freely admit to once being a fan. 

So... Acceptance of one band and rejection of another has little to do with musicianship.

In high school I really dug Give it to Me Baby by Rick James. Whenever it came on the radio, my group of friends would pull over- day or night- fling the car doors open, crank the volume skyward, and literally get down in the  street, totally ignoring oncoming traffic. We felt free and bad ass dancing there in the middle of the road.

It was the era of Duran Duran and Wham, neon tights, bad shag haircuts, and shoulder pads. Not cool.

 But the Police were cool, especially the album Regatta de Blanc.  Prince was cool.  But the super group - Asia or REO Speedwagon?  Sent to the back of the closet with grandma's re-gifted sweaters.

Growing up suburban meant we spent a lot of time hanging out in cars listening to music.  I am pretty embarrassed about the muscle car I drove in high school (wincing now uncontrollably... yes... here it is...I actually had a bitchin' Camaro...white with a spoiler...)  It came with an 8-track tape converter so you could play cassette tapes. Frankly, I find that cooler than the Camaro.  Cringe worthy? You bet.

My recollections of high school are an amalgam of such cringe worthy flashbacks peppered by the occasional poignant one. Music is a way to involuntarily relive uncomfortable moments in one's life. Suffice to say, they were almost all uncomfortable moments.

But why is some music from adolescence still cool and others so very not?  What is the  key to looking back without shame?


Will kids 30 years from now watch youtube videos of Rapper Nelly, Katy Perry, Rihanna (et. al.) from a satellite on Mars and say, "look at that whack old school earth crap grandma used to like?" (hope for their sake the crap of 2042 is better than the crap of 2012).

I listen to a wide variety of music these days, though to be frank, I'm not that open minded.  Practically everything I listen to or perform falls under Jazz, Classical, or World, and occasionally Folk.  These aren't hard and fast rules, but I like what I like. It has nothing to do with cool and everything to do with what moves me. The deeper I began to explore the elements and rudiments of music, as a listener and a performer, my tastes have evolved. And continue their evolution.
 
Admitting you once listened to death metal for a New York minute - (I did own a Motorhead album and liked the song Ace of Spades) - can be cathartic.  

But what about the sensory memories we all have that are triggered by certain music?

Sometime in the late 70's, when I was a little kid, I recall sitting on the gold shag rug in our den (on which my little brother spilled calligraphy ink and I got in big trouble). I was huddled next to the air conditioner in a wet bathing suit, hoping my mom wouldn't notice. I can still see the Danish wood woven chairs and the folding black lacquer snack tables with Jackson Pollock-like swirls on the top. The Band was still popular (Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, et al... My cousin Grace was married to Rick Danko, the bass player).  

Whenever I hear The Weight, I remember this time and this room.

Stay tuned for more on music and sensory memories.

What music from your high school years do you still consider cool?  

Do you have any skeletons in your musical closet? 

It may be time to let them out.

Roberta Piket Solo - The Extreme Challenge

“I’m always looking for new challenges,” jazz pianist Roberta Piket says about her latest release, which she decided to record solo.  

Is there a greater challenge for a pianist? A classical pianist must execute the music flawlessly, no question, but the notes are written there in the score to interpret. A jazz pianist doesn't just interpret, but must conduct, arrange, orchestrate, and play every instrument in the symphony.

Playing solo is an Emersonian endeavor… Extreme self reliance. There is nobody to catch you if you fall, no anchoring bass groove or drums to interplay with.  You have no horns to double the melody, add voices, or provide call and response phrases.   

Freedom is the extreme challenge, and it's what makes Roberta Piket’s new solo recording so intriguing. Though she isn’t constrained by other musicians, she must satisfy the demands posed by the material itself.  How does a solo artist make the music fly?  How does she embody the orchestra with just two hands?

I asked Roberta about the challenges a solo recording posed.  Here is what she said:

“Solo piano isn’t something I had focused much on. So I had to work on it conceptually and maybe a little technically, too. I think I had the physical chops for it, but the mental chops are another story. I have always felt that one of the things I need[ed] to work hardest at as a player is my focus, or concentration. Playing solo really forced me to hone in on that."

  

Roberta Piket is the real deal.  It isn’t her impressive resume, which includes playing as a sideman with Dave Liebman, Rufus Reid, Lionel Hampton, and a veritable “who’s who” of other top jazz musicians too numerous to mention, nor the fact that she has been featured twice on Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland.  It isn't even that she studied with bop pianist Walter Bishop Jr., Fred Hersh, Richie Beirach, and briefly with Sophia Rosoff (founder of the Abby Whiteside Foundation, instructor of many fine pianists).  She proves her mettle where it counts - in her playing.

I asked Roberta about technique, because to me, the purpose of being technically skilled is to express yourself, unimpeded. You want technique to be the puppet master behind the scenes.  When the marionettes dance and come to life to enchant, the string wielder should be invisible. This is what separates artists from technicians. Chops get you up the steps to the door. But without heart, vision, and artistry, you won’t get through that door to the inside. Roberta said:

“Chops and skills are tools, although some musicians don’t seem to know that. But all the great ones did. You need to have tools to have control over the expression you are trying to create.  Solo presents another challenge in that, because you’re one player playing one instrument, it can all end up sounding the same. I wanted the program to be interesting and varied. So I was very conscious, when choosing the material, of programming a set that would have variety of tempo, feel, mood, etc.”

  

Different moods inhabit each track, beginning with I See Your Face Before Me, a romantic standard by Schwartz and Dietz. Roberta exercises restraint and control.  She doesn’t guild the melody with sentimentality. She harnesses the emotion through her phrasing and in her articulation of the melody, simply, but without over-playing. Her pedal work and use of space recall Satie’s Gymnopedie.

 

Another challenge Roberta faced was how to say something new with standard songs:

“I have always played and loved standards, so it wasn’t a matter of getting comfortable with them. I just wasn’t sure I had anything new or interesting to say on these tunes, most of which have been played over and over again. So coming up with a creative and personal interpretation that was not gimmicky [like, hey, we’re going to add an accordion player to this version of Monk’ Dream!] was a challenge.“

Take Roberta’s interpretation of two Thelonious Monk pieces.  Her treatment couldn’t be more diverse. The first, Variations on a Dream, is abstract and interpretive, a zigzag of tonal and linear  meanderings that build into a free jazz soundscape, vaguely Scriabin-esque.

The second, Monk’s Dream, reverently showcases Monk’s playful and angular style. Monk is inimitable, but Roberta manages to capture his essence rhythmically without exaggerating his inflections or trying to capture his nuances.

Roberta navigates Thelonious Monk by using both solid straight-ahead bop language and deft modern and inventive linear and chordal explosions. Her free improvisational torrents, which sound borrowed from Stravinsky, Scriabin, and Ravel are thrilling to hear.

I asked Roberta how her exceptional piano skills helped serve this project:

“When I started practicing for this project, I wasn’t sure I had all of the tools I would need. I found out that I had the technical skills more than I’d thought, but the mental chops less than I would have liked. So I worked on that and continue to work on that every day.  Once a reviewer wrote that I had chops to spare, and I really like that. “

One of the highlights for me is Billy Strayhorn’s Something To Live For.  It’s a stunning choice, and Roberta plays it only one time through.  It leaves you wanting. Her darkly sophisticated harmonies make you feel there’s something lurking beneath the surface of the music. I envisioned a murky onyx-colored pond bordering an old mysterious forest just around sunset.

When I told Roberta that I loved the darkness and asked why she only played it just once:

“I don’t think of it as a “dark“ interpretation really. For me both the music and the lyrics have a very wistful and dreamy quality which led me to a dreamy interpretation.  I didn’t launch into a solo after playing the melody because I felt that I had said all I really had to say on it. It felt like a complete statement.”

I inquired as to what led her to "free jazz" exploration and how it helped to open her ears:

“I have been exploring free jazz for at least 20 years. In general I think the best free jazz players have some foundation in straight-ahead jazz, although there are certainly exceptions. And these days many straight-ahead players, especially younger players, grow up playing free as well. It’s just another genre that they learn. I think it makes you a better straight-ahead player because it opens up your ears and your conception.

When I was on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, both times that Marian hosted the show we played a free piece together. So you can see that those genre boundaries are really breaking down, which is a good thing. I wish it would happen a little faster, because it’s frustrating when one magazine publisher stupidly decides out of hand that my previous CD, Sides, Colors,  is not worth his time  without even listening to it because there are two standards on it, and another writer won’t put it in his top ten because he happens to only like jazz that “swings”, and there are two free pieces out of twelve on the CD. I think the average listener is way more open minded than these “jazz professionals”. But unfortunately they are the gate keepers, although with the internet of course that’s changed a lot.”

I was reminded of a story the jazz singer Sheila Jordan tells about two reviewers in the audience at the same performance.  One said something to the effect that she was "a great singer but had no look”.  The other reviewer said that she “looked great but had no sound,” [or so the story went].  Jazz publications are barraged with music and to get someone to really listen can be hard, let alone someone without an agenda – but I have to have faith that great music somehow does get through.

There’s a striking version of Estate, on this album.  My quintessential version is by pianist/singer Shirley Horn. Roberta plays Estate in 7/4 and it really fits the song.  About three-quarters through the track, Roberta goes into an inspired vamp that doesn't end the tune.  Instead, the montunos and changes climb and build and turn-around... And climb, and build, and turn-around... Muy caliente! It’s a crescendo of musical energy that gets the crowd on its feet in a live performance – and it works the same way on CD.

Nefertiti, by Wayne Shorter, is an interesting choice for a solo piano project. The winding almost hypnotic drone of the melody over Shorter's complex harmonies sounds fluid when a saxophone plays it, but a pianist has to find ways to sculpt the lines over and through the harmonies to make them sound cohesive without losing them in the form. It’s daunting enough for a duo, but Roberta demonstrates how to use existing harmonic language- and create her own- to make the song full and complete, and new, without losing its essence.

Litha, by Chick Corea, is a supreme challenge for a soloist.  The melody line is busy and the harmony is never static, which would be hard for even a trio to master. It’s a serious orchestration challenge on one instrument. Not to mention that when a pianist takes on material by Chick Corea, it’s risky. Putting one's own stamp on another pianist's composition- in this case Chick Corea- while trying to keep its integrity and say something fresh, is definitely tightrope walking without a net. Roberta makes daring pay off.

I asked Roberta about her composition Claude’s Clawed, her inspiration and solo treatment of it.  I was curious about how she used a particular intervallic bass line against the right hand:

“When I had a trio with Ratso Harris on bass, I wanted to write something really challenging and different because he is such a virtuoso. The bass part is open fifths moving around in thirds and half steps, which are strong intervals that project a certain stability even while the harmony moves around. (It’s the same reason Giant Steps works so well harmonically. Not that I’m comparing!)  The musical DNA for Claude’s Clawed comes from Chick Corea’s The Brain, as well other things I was studying with Richie Beirach including some modern classical influences. 

I first recorded Claude’s Clawed on my 2006 trio CD, Love and Beauty.  It was challenging to play this particular tune solo. It’s such a burner. But I wanted variety on the CD and this tune is very different!”

In the Days of Our Love, a ballad composed by Marian McPartland, is a gorgeous tribute to McPartland. 

Beatrice, by the late saxophonist/composer Sam Rivers, is a song that was brought to my attention quite a few years ago by a baritone saxophonist friend, who was a real Rivers fan.  Sam Rivers, who passed on in 2011, was a brilliant musician with an extensive knowledge of music theory, composition, and orchestration. He exemplifies the fully realized musical soul, one who has the mastery to stay within and extend beyond the limitations of traditional musical boundaries, with intention. Roberta had an opportunity to meet Rivers during an artist residency, where they played Beatrice as a duo. 

The album closes with a piece composed by Roberta’s father Frederick, a well known classical and liturgical composer.   According to the liner notes, Roberta found the sheet music for Improvisation Blue among her father's original scores. Piket wrote and published a few popular tunes, which came to light when Roberta found the music. If she hadn't been a musician, one wonders what would have happened to this piece.

I asked Roberta to share how she found the process.  I wondered if it felt lonely to prepare and record a solo project, like a one-sided conversation:

“I don’t think it’s lonelier working on a solo project than any other recording. When you are preparing for a CD a lot of that preparation is solitary – practicing, writing tunes, choosing tunes…and then after the recording, choosing takes, post-production. People see you on the bandstand with a band and they may think jazz musicians have an amazing social life. And there is a great community of musicians if you find your niche. But being an artist is essentially a solitary pursuit, at least if you want to be any good at it.

When I was a student I attended a clinic given by Paul Bley and he said something to the effect that he liked playing solo because there was no one to mess you up. Of course I still love playing with other musicians, but the freedom of playing solo is really rewarding. And you really are out there alone, like one of those gymnasts on the balance beam. At one point I was actually thinking of calling the CD “No One Else to Blame.”  The more I do it the more I feel it can grow and develop. I really feel that as far as playing solo goes, I’ve just begun to explore the possibilities.”

I then asked if Roberta wanted people to get something particular out of her music:

“I don’t really think about it in these terms. I give the best I can, and different people will take different things away from it. If they are moved in some way then that is pleasing.”

  

Consider the following quote:  

“Simplicity is the final achievement.  After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

 -Frederic Chopin

Through wide-ranging exploration, experimentation, traditional methodologies and approaches, problem solving, discovery, and invention – the artist’s true vision emerges.  Roberta plays a “vast quantity of notes and more notes,” but not just any notes.  In jazz, a lot of care, thought, and preparation goes into what sounds like spontaneous genius.  There is spontaneity, and genius, but unless it's grounded in a strong foundation, it won't last. It's too random. Simplicity can only happen after the exploration, when each piece stands on its own. If we look through Chopin's lens, Roberta Piket's Solo recording has reached this level of achievement. The question is- where does she go from here?

To find out more about Roberta Piket, check out her schedule and discography at:    

www.robertajazz.com

The Foolish & Impossible Task: Defining "Art"

“The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated.”c. 2007- Thomas Adajian 

Defining art is like walking barefoot up a glacier in the rain... 
 

It's like drinking the ocean with a straw.  No matter how many academics argue, theorize, and postulate, they’ll never do it.  How can they?  

Just for fun, (OK, I'm a little hard up for fun) I consulted the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a definition of Art (they happened to be the first result when you Google "what is art?"), and even they cover their asses with a disclaimer before citing heavyweights, like Plato, Kant, and Wittgenstein...

That's just like the world of academia, where professors try to prove things that are really a waste of time to try to prove, throw around a lot of big names, and then publish their pretzel logic to impress other professors.  Then, they force university students to buy these dry deadweight books.  Even the campus bookstore won't buy them back.    

A scholar is the last person who should be trying to define art.  Academia is like a gerbil inside an eternally spinning wheel who only stops running to eat and take a poop.

Andres Serrano's Piss Christ is a prime example of why defining art will never work.  Senator Jesse Helms, (and other great thinkers and arbiters of art and culture in congress), called for an end to public funding of the arts when it was revealed that Serrano had received an NEA grant.  

I asked 100 people: "What are the BEST and the WORST songs you've ever heard?"  I thought perhaps a sample of responses would reveal one song as universally good or bad.  

But responses to this question varied tremendously.  One friend even sent me a link to a study and a poll created by composer Dave Soldier in 1996, surveying musical preferences (Komar, Melamid, and Soldier – Most Wanted Song and Most Unwanted Song  project.)  The study looked at a variety of factors and concluded that there were identifiable musical preferences that could be measured.

For example, high female voices were found less desirable than low female voices.  

A narrower dynamic range was preferable to a wider one (this could be why audio engineers use so much compression in commercially produced music).  Rock was the most popular style of music and opera was the least desirable.  Jazz placed somewhere in between.

There were preferences for instrument sounds, too. Guitar and piano were the most popular by a wide margin.  Bagpipe and accordion, followed by banjo and tuba, topped the least preferred instruments list.  It would be interesting to see if it would hold true in other cultures, where instruments, tunings, and scales are different, like in Indian music, where quarter tones are used.  

Through my very unscientific method of casual inquiry, (sorry, academia), I found that people tended to favor songs that were... (drum roll please!)... 

Emotionally appealing yet not maudlin or overtly sentimental.  

I found there was a line between emotional expressiveness in songs and utter schmaltziness, that most people didn't like to cross... 

For example, Feelings, is a really yucky song that a lot of people dislike for the reason above.  Several people put it on their list of "worst" songs ever.  But other people (none that were in my half assed unscientific survey) must like the tune as it reached #2 on the Adult Contemporary charts.  There's even a Spanish version, Sentimientos, which perhaps came first: “Dime…Solamente dime. Como olvidar mis Sentimientos de amor…” Is it less cloying in Spanish?

As someone who loves Brazilian music, I am often amazed at how Portuguese lyrics, which are often impressionistic and poetic, have been translated into English.  The English rarely seems to fit- though some lyricists- like the late Gene Lees-managed to evoke beauty and imagery more consistent with the Brazilian sensibility.

Well written lyrics don't always mean a song is widely appreciated, either.  Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park is a song that many people like and many people don't.  I am not sure if it's the lyrics (that line about the cake left out in the rain), or if it's the dramatic build-up as the song climaxes. Yet again, it could be that it reminds people of their yearbook photo, which is all it takes to hate a song.

Among the jazz musicians I heard from, Cole Porter, Ellington/Strayhorn, and Gershwin songs were generally favorites, but is that any secret?  As a singer, I admit a fondness for these songs, too (see my previous post about great songs).

The songs musicians find most intolerable are those they played too many times during certain periods of their lives. 

One musician told me, "I still have nightmares starring Perry Como!"  Curious, as I wasn't all that familiar with Perry Como, I found Papa Loves Mambo on Youtube. 

I imagined a couple, Angie and Vinnie, dancing at an Italian wedding.  Angie was 40-something, a bit zaftig.  She had an auburn bouffant and wore kohl eyeliner like a wide receiver's eye black.  Vinnie was 50-ish with slicked back silver hair and black leather wing tips with pointy toes. She had blood red fingernails that looked like they could really do some damage.  He lived with his mother.

Then the song was over.

There was a certain kitsch factor from another time that was rather appealing and those little horn licks.

But someone out there, LOVES that song, maybe thinks it's the best thing to hit Arthur Avenue since Clams Posillipo... 

Hooks, catchy phrases and motifs, even earworms determine whether or not we love or hate a tune, too, (most often the latter).  Last year, I couldn't get an animated singing pancake out of my head for days...  It sucked! 

Motifs aren’t sinister plots to destroy our well being or drive us mad, though they feel that way.  All the great composers used them.  Wagner was the uber konig of motifs. If he were alive today, the Ring Cycle would probably sell laundry detergent and soft drinks.

Motifs can actually be some of the coolest things in music.  They give our ears something recognizable and predictable to latch on to and remember.  They are logical and musically satisfying. 

In Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sacks, the doctor famous for doing incredible things with dementia patients through music, there is a chapter called “Brainworms, Sticky Music, and Catchy Tunes.” Sacks believes motifs or catchy phrases actually enter and subvert a part of the brain.  He uses Beethoven’s Fifth and the theme from Mission Impossible as examples in his book.  Sacks has seen music completely transform people who have been stuck in catatonic states.  He believes the songs we internalize throughout our lifetime are vital to being human.  Music is vital?  What a concept!

I hope our human connection to songs, how music resonates within each of us, is unique and personal.  How can it be otherwise?    Good and bad are totally subjective.  Some things can't be determined using quantitative analysis, algorithms, studies, focus groups, and market research.  And as far as I am concerned, they never will.  I would not like to live in a world where everyone preferred the same modes of expression.  Yet it seems like things are going in that direction more and more.

Artists will always exist.  And no one will ever be able to define art or music in absolute terms.  Spin that in your gerbil wheels, academia...  Then wipe your bum!

(I welcome your comments and questions and random rants)

Call for the BEST and the WORST in MUSIC

Is there a song you think could possibly be the BEST of all time?

What about the WORST?

What makes one song so great you can hear it again and again and never get sick of it, while another song may have the opposite effect?  What makes for the best and the worst? 
 
Where does Stairway to Heaven fall on the spectrum?  Is it the greatest song in Rock and Roll or something you hope you never hear again?


Ruminate.  Pontificate. Discuss...

Then, write me with your BEST and WORST of ALL TIME song submission ideas.

I'll be waiting to see if there is any kind of a trend.

After I receive your ideas (oh, believe me, I have ideas of my own), I'll blog about it.

Cheers!

EP

Songs Change Lives

“An idea means something entirely different to a songwriter than it might to a novelist, journalist, or screenwriter.  Songwriters work, for the most part, in a milieu that might be described as technological haiku… We must accomplish our aims and tell our entire story in a time frame of about three minutes… Every word, every note must count.”

                             Jimmy Webb/Tunesmith, 1998

You transfer your late night cocktail napkin scribbles onto the fresh blank page with conviction.  You have an incredible first verse.  Now what?

That first verse will taunt you. Can you write a second, or even a third, as good as the first? By the twenty-third draft- when the dust settles and the ink dries- do you have something that's even any good? 

A great song is that hard to write. You feverishly record every idea into a little notebook, hoping one will bear fruit, that one idea will ripen sweetly into a great song. In that respect, it’s not unlike playing the lottery.  In fact, you might get luckier playing Megamillions than writing a hit song.

If anyone knows the agony (and the ecstasy) of songwriting, it’s Jimmy Webb. His book Tunesmith is compelling from start to finish. It’s in the pantheon of “must read” songwriting process books, full of wisdom, humor, and wonderful anecdotes, if songwriting is your bag.

Songwriting is tangible, yet somehow mysterious.  It’s an enthralling mystical space where words meet melody – that space can transform, upend, and forever change you. It’s a space you rarely visit in current popular culture.

Great songs weather time and cultural demise. Audiences still resonate with the best music ever written.  Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish, composed in 1927, still wows:  “And now the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart. Up into the sky the little stars climb always reminding me that we’re apart…”

Is there a better example of that mystical space?  I get goosebumps!  Melodies and lyrics this good are soul affirming, and always relevant.  Stardust will remain an epic, despite contemporary tampering, sampling, and over the top- 21^stcentury-melisma heavy-carnivalesque-sideshow-worthy - vocal renditions.  It will stand up to anything, even bad taste!  Great songs have this power to endure.  That said, I'm not certain I'd like to hear All The Things You Are arranged for bagpipe and theremin. Stranger things have happened to the Great American song book - mostly in elevators.  But however punishing the treatment, Kern’s chestnut will always emerge shining and victorious.  Like Gloria Gaynor, it too, will survive.

I recently gave a presentation on my “textual lineage” to a group of writers and teachers.  Textual lineage, a term coined by author Alfred Tatum, refers to how literacy, oral tradition, music, cultural values, family, passions, life experiences, etc. shape our lives. I can probably recall every song lyric, every melody, embroidered and woven throughout the multi-textured fabric that has become my life. 

This immense tapestry contains my musical lineage, my song dreams. All the songs I’ve ever heard, sung, or written are sewn into this diverse patchwork.  Let’s randomly examine this lyric by Tom Waits:

Broken Bicycles

“Broken bicycles, old busted chains

with rusted handle bars, out in the rain

Somebody must have an orphanage for

all these things that nobody wants any more

September’s reminding July

It’s time to be saying goodbye

Summer is gone,

our love will remain

like old broken bicycles out in the rain

*   *   *   *   *

Broken bicycles, don’t tell my folks

There’s all those playing cards

pinned to the spokes

Laid down like skeletons

out on the lawn

The wheels won’t turn

when the other has gone

The seasons can turn on a dime

Somehow I forget every time

For the things that you’ve given me

Will always stay

broken,

but I will never

Throw them away”

Words/Music by Tom Waits

Fifth Floor Music/1982

The first time I heard this slow-to-mid-tempo waltz. I was sitting in my car in front of Starbuck's. The imagery of broken bicycles tarnishing in the rain, a damaged relationship in permanent disrepair, in parts rusting all over the lawn, dysfunction… Wow!  Through the crags in Tom’s voice, like old tree bark you want to run your hands over to feel every ridge, every knot, you are transported to his song world. This song is a departure from chronicles of washed up alcoholics on a bender, hopelessly hunkering in the pre-dawn hours, clutching empty scotch bottles proudly like trophies, hookers, sad eyes, a blue dress, red shoes, sinister drugstore lighting, a seedy urban societal underbelly – familiar themes for Waits.  What a master!  Waits’ depictions are theatrical and riveting. His songs are contemporary film noir.  Broken Bicycles is still haunting, thirty years later.

On another corner of my tapestry I find Guess Who I Saw Today, a song I’ve associated with Carmen McRae, though the great Nancy Wilson also recorded it.  Here’s the chorus without the 16-bar verse (do people even know what “verses” are anymore?):

Guess Who I Saw Today

Guess who I saw today my dear

I went in town to shop around for

Something new

And thought I’d stop and have a bite

When I was through

I looked around for someplace near

And it had occurred to me where I

had parked the car

I’d seen a most attractive French café

and bar

Guess who I saw today my dear

The waiter showed me to a dark

secluded corner

and when my eyes became accustomed

to the gloom

I saw two people at the bar who were

so much in love

that even I could spot it clear across the room

Guess who I saw today my dear

I’ve never been so shocked before

I headed blindly for the door

They didn’t see me passing through

Guess who I saw today

I saw you

Words and Music: Grand/Boyd

1952 Warner Chappell

It’s another drama, unfolding completely in the span of three to four minutes. No rich imagery. No flowery poetics. No clever rhyme scheme. But a very sophisticated treatment of a husband caught cheating. The lyricist builds anticipation up so well, that by the time the other shoe drops, the wife has totally lost it.  I can see the unsuspecting husband walk into the house. The wife fixes him a drink, perhaps a dry martini.  Then she lays bare the painful truth. Utterly brilliant.

The empty page beckons. It dares you to find the right words, the evocative words, the ones with the power and poignancy to change lives.  For lyrics and melodies do change lives.  As a singer, as a writer, as a human being who loves, feels, and breathes, songs have forever changed me.  How have they changed you?


I welcome your comments.  What songs have shaped your musical lineage?