step by step by step bach by bach by note by note each placed, nothing missed
Last Sunday found us at the the Grace Coastal Church of Okatie, South Carolina.
There was one of those Church moments when the pianist stopped during an intro to a hymn and announced that her piano was out of tune.
“It’s one of those digital piano’s,” she said, “I know I just have to press a button to reset it … but I don’t know where that button is.”
And she got up and walked across the platform to the old grand piano and the picked up where she had left off.
One of those moments of natural comic relief that make church chuch.
The service was old fashioned to the point that all the lights were on and everyone, and I mean everyone sang.
And in this time of post covid, they even took up an offering by passing things hand to hand.
For an old church veteran like me, an offering meant an offertory.
The musical interlude before the sermon.
For a small Presbyterian low county church, I did not expect much.
For a small Presbyterian low county church, I wasn’t ready for what happened next.
That pianist, who already admitted she couldn’t tune a digital piano, sat down at the keyboard and pulled off a minor miracle by effortlessly pulling notes out of that old grand piano in a charming rendition of Bach’s Arioso from Cantata 156 “Ich steh’mit Fuss in Grabe” (yes I looked the official name up).
She played it slow, so slowly but on the beat.
Each note sounding alone but part of the chain.
The magic of Bach, the progression of the notes, each one, like one step following the next and never a misstep.
Each step following the next in a way that, to me, I have to say HOW and at the same time, HOW COULD IT BE ANYTHING ELSE.
I was sitting in a small, small Presbyterian low county church.
But the music took me far away.
I don’t know.
It’s been so long that I have had opportunity to hear live music.
This was so unexpected.
This was so charming.
I am sure I am making way more of this than anyone else there, or that anyone should, but it was, for a me, the truest moment of prayer and of grace with the gift of these notes, in this arrangement played in this way, that I have had in a long time.
Folks, let me tell you, if God lets the odd moment like this happen, and believe, not really by chance, what can happen when he really puts his mind too it?
Odd.
So much is given.
Boy, Howdy, but much is going to be expected!
They say Mr. Bach could set back and let these musical progressions pour out of his fingers without a thought.
All I can think of is how?
So I don’t think.
I just let the moment be that moment.
And I thanked God for it.
BTW, with the magic that is the internet, I was able to find a video of the church service and rip the audio of this simple musical moment and you can click here to hear it.
It isn’t a quality recording, but it is great at the same time and you close your eyes and imagine a small sunlight church with morning coming in the windows and nothing else to do for a minute but listen and as they say, know that God is God.
Yes, there is baby crying at the start … live music, what can you say.
According to the article by David Aldridge and Marcus Thompson II, it was 30 years ago that Marvin Gaye sang his three minute version of the Star Spangled Banner.
In February 1984, I was a college student in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a city often described by people who haven’t lived there as a suburb of Detroit.
While it may not have been a suburb, it Ann Arbor did have a Detroit edge to it and Motown was the home team.
Come to think of it, growing up in Michigan, Motown was the home team.
It seems like a lot of the sound track music to my life is Motown.
And Marvin Gaye was going to start off the NBA All Star game, and please understand that in 1984, the NBA All Star game was nothing like it is today.
First of all, it was a real game and both teams wanted to win.
Second of all, that is all it was, just this one game.
No All Star week.
And Marvin Gaye was going to start it off with the National Anthem.
The story told in this article is wonderful in capturing this moment and what led up to it, how it came off, and the legacy of it all.
(Spoiler Alert – the play by play of the people in LA waiting waiting waiting for Marvin to show up and he walks into the arena with his drum track on a cassette in his hand MINUTES before he went on national TV is … well, read it for yourself)
One of the best things written in the article is the line, “No one remembers what happened in the game. No one. Including the players. “If you ask anybody about the L.A. All-Star Game, they say, ‘That’s the Marvin Gaye national anthem game,’” [Isiah] Thomas said.”
I remember watching it as it happened.
“So Marvin walks out,” Thomas said. “They got his music, he grabs the mic … just as cool as ever. But the anthem music doesn’t come on. It’s another beat. The first thing you notice is, ‘Wait a minute; this ain’t the national anthem soundtrack.’”
I remember as I watched and listened, that I had to stand up.
Then I remember thinking how long can this go?
This is INCEDIBLE.
When Marvin got the sell out crowd clapping IN TIME to the National Anthem, I think I had tears in my eyes.
When the players, looking at each in disbelief, joined the crowd, I know I had tears.
In the article, Marquis Johnson said, “The first thought was something to the effect of, like, the uber-patriots, Marvin’s kind of messing with the national anthem. ‘Boy, he’s going to get some blowback for this.’ But then as he went on, and it was so iconic and funky and soulful, all that good stuff, that wasn’t the thought. I was just standing there and enjoying the moment, realizing that this is a unique, special experience that we were all a part of.”
Never forgot it.
But when I talked with other people about it, so few seemed to have any knowledge of it.
People who see other good renditions of the National Anthem and ask me about it.
Oh that Whitney …
Did you see Carrie … or Lady Gaga ..
Well, I would say, they weren’t at all like Marvin were they …
And I would get blank stares.
Staying local, I love Anita Baker (okay I love anything by Anita Baker) and Karen Newman and their renditions of the Anthem but the gold standard, heck the ONLY standard is Marvin.
As Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Thompson II write, Gaye bent the song to his will and tempo.
Working 20 years in television news, I had a standard for sports reporters based on whether on not they remembered this moment
One feller, I think in Atlanta, and I had a long email exchange over it.
I had to send him the link to YouTube.
10 minutes later, he was up in my office to thank me.
He had never even HEARD of it.
Just have to shake my head.
Can something be a defining moment if few people remember.
This song was for me at least.
It somehow made the National Anthem, well, National.
When I die, I hope someone plays this as my ashes are poured out on the beach.
What’s left of Me, the beach and Marvin Gaye singing the National Anthem.
And I know there are comments and concerns about our National Anthem.
It isn’t the greatest song in the book but it is the national song.
Andy Rooney once said something like, say what you will about the Star Spangled Banner, it sure sounds good when you hear it when you are in another country.
One song.
Lots of renditions.
But none better than one sang on February 13, 1983, in Los Angeles California by Marvin Pentz Gay Jr.
Marvelous Marvin.
And I’ll never forget it.
I hope you take the time to listen.
According to the article this 3 minute version is cut down from the 6 minute version at rehearsal.
of virtuosic reticence, a silk of sound inward and wistful
Music critics get to use the best words.
In a recent review of the New York Philharmonic titled, At the Philharmonic: a Taste of Holiday Bounty: Stéphane Denève leads a program of extravagantly colorful French works, with the pianist Víkingur Ólafsson as the soloist in a Ravel concerto, Zachary Wolfe GOT TO WRITE:
It’s not that his touch is diffuse; it’s as clean as marble. And it’s not that the tempos he and Denève chose for the framing movements were slower than normal. But the effect Ólafsson got throughout, of a kind of virtuosic reticence, could be described in the same words I used for his performance in February: a “silk of sound, inward-looking and wistful in both major and minor keys, in both andante and allegro.
1st to have a job where you are paid to go to concerts in New York City.
Then to have job where you are paid to go to concerts in New York City and then be allowed, no, expected, to write about these concerts using some of the best words and the best USE of words that you can imagine.
Thanksgiving came a day early at the New York Philharmonic this year: the calories, the juicy fat, the whipped cream, the fun, the sense of endless bounty
Some pianists lean on the factory-machine regularity, the bright lucidity, of those parts
… opened the concert with an extravagance that offers proof of the survival of the orchestrational panache of the French tradition: its lurid lushness and sly squiggles, brassy explosions and sensual strings
The Philharmonic played well throughout, riding the many waves and swerves of intensity and pigment, from dewy dawns to mellow dusks
IT IS JUST NOT FAIR.
But I have this blog and I can write about the words.
And I can applaud the use of the words and thoughts.
And I can fell a little smug.
Mr. Wolfe notes that the soloist, Víkingur Ólafsson, played a tender Rameau encore.
I bet I know what he played.
I bet I know because in a post back in April, I recommended that you listen to playing Rameau.
I made another bet in that post.
I bet that if you listened to the piece through the link I had on the page, I bet that you would instantly become happier.
Or wondering, when they learned that leaves were green, If colours were like music, heard afar?
Seems like the idea of music as colors has turned up before in this blog – and I believe there has been discussion of folks who do SEE color when listening to music.
Then there is the lines:
As though, for them, the Spring held nothing new; And not one face was turned to look again.
And I think how to have never seen a sunset.
To have never looked back for that one last look.
I am reminded on the painting of the blind soldiers by John Singer Sargent.
Once again the line from The Color Purple comes to mind that “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.“
Spring , and the Blind Children
They left the primrose glistening in its dew. With empty hands they drifted down the lane, As though, for them, the Spring held nothing new; And not one face was turned to look again.
Like tiny ghosts, along their woodland aisle, They stole. They did not leap or dance or run. Only, at times, without a word or smile, Their small blind faces lifted to the sun;
Innocent faces, desolately bright, Masks of dark thought that none could ever know; But O, so small to hide it. In their night What dreams of our strange world must come and go;
Groping, as we, too, grope for heavens unseen; Guessing – at what those fabulous visions are; Or wondering, when they learned that leaves were green, If colours were like music, heard afar?
Were brooks like bird-song ? Was the setting sun Like scent of roses, or like evening prayer ? Were stars like chimes in heaven, when day was done; Was midnight like their mothers’ warm soft hair?
And dawn? – a pitying face against their own, A whispered word, an unknown angel’s kiss, That stoops to each, in its own dark, alone; But leaves them lonelier for that breath of bliss ?
Was it for earth’s transgressions that they paid – Lambs of that God whose eyes with love grow dim – Sharing His load on whom all wrongs are laid ? But O, so small to bear it, even with Him!
God of blind children, through Thy dreadful light They pass. We pass. Thy heavens are all so near. We cannot grasp them in our earth-bound night. But O, Thy grief! For Thou canst see and hear.
in music landscape of melancholy, not joy peppy outlier
Adapted from a blurb for a popcast/review on the artist Lizzo.
The blurb read:
Lizzo’s second major-label studio album, “Special,” another collection of up-tempo disco-pop empowerment anthems, just arrived at No. 2 on the Billboard album chart. Its single “About Damn Time” also climbed to No. 1 on the Hot 100, securing her place as one of pop’s established stars.
But “Special” is also a reminder that she is one of pop’s most idiosyncratic performers, too. Lizzo’s throwback-minded anthems are full of internet-primed catchphrases, and she remains a peppy outlier in a pop music landscape dominated by performers who largely traffic in melancholy, not joy. (Lizzo’s Complicated, Joyful Pop, NYT, 7/27/2022)
Note to self.
Make time this week to find this album and give it a listen.
artist inspired creative challenge sung word sew words in music
Inspired by an article on the career and life of one Gilberto Gil.
(UPDATE from the next day – there are some really good words here and I can do better – not fond of the haiku – we shall see what can be done to bring about a better arrangement – 7.23.2022 8AM)
According to Wikipedia, Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira, a Brazilian singer-songwriter and politician, known for both his musical innovation and political activism. From 2003 to 2008, he served as Brazil’s Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Gil’s musical style incorporates an eclectic range of influences, including rock, Brazilian genres including samba, African music, and reggae.
The last paragraph was worth reading all the other paragraphs.
The last paragraph was a quote.
Mr. Gil said, “The artist who is inspired by poetry and the creative challenge of the sung word has always something to say. And I like this embroidery – I like to sew words into the tissue of music. So, until the forces that provide this work disappear, I will keep on answering the request of that young singer who wants a collaboration, or that new author who asks for lyrics. As the saying goes: as long as there’s bamboo, there’s an arrow.”
I like that a lot.
The artist who is inspired by poetry and the creative challenge of the sung word has always something to say.
And I like this embroidery – I like to sew words into the tissue of music.
So, until the forces that provide this work disappear, I will keep on answering the request of that young singer who wants a collaboration, or that new author who asks for lyrics.
As the saying goes: as long as there’s bamboo, there’s an arrow.”
die freude schöner götterfunken tochter aus elysium
Random thoughts in the afternoon, and my first haiku in german, brought on by the presenter on the radio saying that he was giving listeners a minute to get ready and then to get settled as the next piece he was going to play was over one hour long.
Before he said what it was I knew what it would be.
On Friday evening, remember I listen to radio station from London so they are 5 hours ahead (this way, I like to say, I know that someone has made it through the next 5 hours) if a radio station is going to play a single piece of classical music over an hour long, it has to be the Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 by Beethoven.
According to one source, It was longer and more complex than any symphony to date and required a larger orchestra. But the most unique feature of “The Ninth” was that Beethoven included chorus and vocal soloists in the final movement. He was the first major composer to do this in a symphony.
According to Wikipedia, it was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven’s greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. One of the best-known works in common practice music, it stands as one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.
I was a little kid when I started listening to classical music.
I am sure there was a lot of ‘look at me, I am so smart I listen to classical music’ and I am sure that Schroeder in the Charlie Brown comic strip also played a part.
But like many other things in my life, I can remember being around the age of 10 or 11 and on TV, my Mom was watching that new public TV station.
Understand this was back in the day when we got three TV channels in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I grew up and when public TV from Grand Valley State College went on air, it increased the amount of available TV 33%.
I sat down to watch with her and it was a documentary narrated by Leonard Bernstein about putting on a concert in Vienna featuring Beethoven’s 9th symphony.
It wasn’t the type of show my Mom usually watched but she kept it on and we both got drawn into the story and the music.
The documentary told three stories.
One was the performance itself.
One was the story behind the performance, the rehearsals, the technical aspects of preparing the hall, the technical aspects of getting the orchestra itself to Vienna.
One was Mr. Bernstein describing the life of times of one Ludwig van Beethoven.
The documentary wove the three stories together and ended with the performance of the 4th movement.
Something about the life of Mr. Beethoven and his struggles to express the sounds inside his head got into me.
I distinctly remember Mr. Bernstein describing how the members of’ the the chorus arrived early enough for ‘one more goulash and beer’ before the performance.
Growing up my house was filled with books.
I talk about that a lot.
But along with the books our house was also filled with music.
My Dad was into the HiFi era and bought a lot of records and a lot of record players.
Along one wall of our living room was a flat countertop cupboard and there were 5 or 6 stacks of LP’s.
My Dad also had his favorite shows and music that he listened to on the radio and he spent a lot time working with a reel to reel tape recorder that could record off the radio at a flip of the switch.
My brothers and sisters of course contributed a lot of music of the era but I can say it was easily one of the most eclectic collections of records music in West Michigan.
After seeing this show about Beethoven, I started looking through the record collection to find other classical music and once I found it, I would listen to it.
For the most part my brothers and sisters put up with it.
It became part of my schtick.
I read a lot.
I listened to classic music.
I weighed about 55 lbs and wore glasses.
I mean, what did anyone else expect.
But there were bonuses.
My brother Bob and his wife were living in Kalamazoo while he went to WMU.
They noticed that WMU had just completed the Miller Auditorium and to dedicate it, the college offered free tickets to a performance to Beethoven’s 9th symphony.
They got in touch with us up in Grand Rapids as they thought I would be interested.
My Dad made or maybe my brother Bobby made some calls and got tickets for all of us and one Sunday afternoon, we loaded up and my Dad, Mom and 7 or 8 of my brothers and sisters went to hear the show.
Now this is where history gets interesting as according to the internet Miller Auditorium opened on Jan. 12, 1968.
That would have made me 7.
Ah, well, precocious wasn’t I.
It was the first time I heard classical music live.
I could see it.
I could hear it.
And I could imagine it.
I have attended maybe 6 or 7 live performances of this symphony since then.
It is different every time.
It is the same every time.
A couple of years after that at Christmas I unwrapped a heavy flat box.
It was a present my Mom picked out for me.
It was a set of records of the all 9 Beethoven symphonies.
I kept those records for the next 50 years.
I am typing this as I listen to the radio so this could go on for a bit.
Another story that always comes to mind.
According to legend when Sony was developing the music CD, the President of Sony demanded that the size of a CD should be big enough to be able to hold a minimum of 88 minutes of music.
He felt that any music medium worth its salt should be able to contain the complete performance of the 9th Symphoney.
I know this story doesn’t hold up against most fact but as they say, when in doubt, print the legend.
That Mr. Beethoven, almost 200 years after his death, had such an impact on modern music was too perfect to not be true.
If it isn’t the way it happened, is the way it should have happened.
And with the that, the music is drawing to a close.
Nice way to end the day.
die freude schöner götterfunken tochter aus elysium
Joy, beautiful spark of Divinity Daughter of Elysium,
do you want to hear some interesting music … is called ‘symphony’
In the movie ‘Out of Africa’ which Wikipedia calls an American epic romantic drama film, there is a scene where Robert Redford sets up a spring-driven record player and when a bunch of baboons wonder over, Redford pulls a string and the record player plays the adagio of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major.
Redford’s character, Denys Finch Hatton, says, “Think of it: never a man-made sound… and then Mozart!”
Two things about this this morning.
One thing that didn’t come to mind until I pasted that quote into place.
I live along the Atlantic Coast and while it is much more quiet than Atlanta, with the traffic that there is on the streets and in the sky, I don’t go long without hearing a man made sound.
I think of Michael Palin’s British epic travel drama documentary, Himalayas.
There is a scene where Palin approaches a hut high in mountains (and I mean high) far far far away from the maddening crowd.
The setting is much like those cartoons of people who trek far into the mountains to ask the wise man for advice and no one, but NO ONE, is within a billion miles so the wise man lives in abject silence.
An old old man comes out of the hut and wants to sing a song for Palin.
Palin’s team starts recording and has to stop because of the man-made sound of a commercial airliner or maybe a Fed Ex transport delivering Amazon Prime Next Day to Nepal, that can be heard flying far overhead.
(A minute later the old man sings his song and then asks Michael Palin to sing something and Palin responds with the first song that pops into his head. 40 years after it was sung for the first time on TV, this old man of mountains got to hear Michael Palin sing, ‘I’m a lumberjack and I’m Okay.)
I am going to pay attention and see how long I can go with out hearing a man made song.
The other thing on my mind about movie scene is that, sure, it was a bit of an A-HA moment but we are taking about baboons out in Africa.
I was just reading this morning that in People’s Republic of China, since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Mozart’s and Beethoven’s music had both been banned.
A generation grew up without ever hearing ‘western’ classical music.
Western classical music was decadent, prurient, bourgeois and listened to by blood-sucking capitalists.
I don’t know about that but I was a kid back in 1960’s and I liked it and in all the notes about my bad behavior that I brought home from school, I never once was accused of being decadent, prurient, bourgeois or a blood-sucking capitalist.
That would have been one heck of a note to bring home!
Then in 1972, Richard Nixon went to China.
A year later Henry Kissinger learned from Chinese leaders that they would like to invite the Philadelphia Orchestra to China. Nixon rang its music director, the Hungarian-American conductor Eugene Ormandy, who immediately sensed history in the making: “That’s wonderful. You honour me, honour the orchestra,” he responded.
The article I was reading was a review of an upcoming documentary about the 2 week tour of China by Philadelphia Orchestra titled Beethoven in Beijing.
The reviewer writes:
In the autumn of 1973, Tan Dun, the Oscar-winning Chinese musician who would go on to compose the soundtrack for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, then a teenager, was sent to a rural commune in Hunan province to plant rice. China was at the height of the Cultural Revolution. One day, Tan heard a sound from a loudspeaker in the field.
“Do you want to hear some interesting music? This is called ‘symphony’. The Philadelphia Orchestra is in China,” a friend said to Tan. It was the first time he had heard about a “symphony orchestra”, and it was striking. “I think it was something by Beethoven – the Sixth or the Fifth symphony.”
Until then, Tan had never known of Beethoven or Mozart, but he was deeply touched by the performance blasted from the loudspeaker. When he returned home, he told his grandmother that he would like to learn more about it.
I cannot imagine.
Readers of the this blog will recognize that I am in awe of the fact that through the World Wide Web there is not a piece of recorded music that is not available to anyone anywhere at anytime.
(I know I know, hyperbole)
And of music.
I think of Fran Lebowitz saying, “… whenever I hear it, I instantly become happier. This is true of almost nothing! That’s a very important thing to do for human beings. Music makes people happier, and it doesn’t harm them. Most things that make you feel better are harmful. It’s very unusual. It’s like a drug, that doesn’t kill you.“
In some ways I wonder what it would be like to never have heard Beethoven in your life.
In some ways I am glad I that I don’t wonder.
And in other ways I am happy as there is always music I haven’t heard.
With that in mind I leave you with this.
I heard it on the radio the other day and spent the next two days tracking it down.
I bet if you listen to it you will instantly become happier.
one small step for man one giant leap for mankind did step on the moon
What did Neil Armstrong say when he landed on the Moon?
I mean okay, after he said Houston …
What did he say when he first stepped on the Moon?
The writers at NASA crafted this great line that he memorized but when he said it there was a buzz of static and the world remembers that he said, “one small step for man …’ and then said, “one giant leap for mankind.”
The goofy thing is I was 9 and I distincly heard FOR MAN and wondered what the difference was between MAN and MANKIND.
But NASA issued the press release that said Mr. Armstrong said, “A MAN.”
Mr. Armstrong said he said, “A MAN”
As in “One small step for A man.”
Which works much better with “One giant leap for mankind.”
What is funnier is that the third man on the moon, Pete Conrad, the mission commander of Apollo 12, who was shorter than Mr. Armstrong, said, “That might have been one small step for Neil, BUT WHOOOEEEEE.”
I guess in a way it IS more important that Mr. Armstrong steps were out on to the moon.
And he was the first to do it and that isn’t going to change.
But I came across another Neil Armstrong footnote yesterday that I was not aware of and I read a lot of these ‘early days of NASA’ books.
Yesterday I went in pursuit of the song, Fly Me to the Moon.
The information I came across again and again referred to the the fact that NASA had adopted the tune as a sort of theme song for the entire space program.
I thought that was interesting but not worth mentioning.
Not worth mentioning until I went search for a you tube video of the song.
I said yesterday I found lots and lots of videos of different recordings of Fly Me to the Moon.
One of them was of Jazz Great Diana Krall.
Well gee whiz, a LOT of them were of Jazz Great Diana Krall.
But one had a very odd thumbnail graphic.
I would swear it showed, a piano and Ms. Krall set up … in a church??
I had to click on it and there it was.
At the memorial service for Neil Armstrong, Commander of Apollo 11 and first man to set foot on the moon, Diana Krall performed Fly Me to Moon.
And you know what?
That is just pretty darn cool any way you present it.
Entirely appropriate.
Such a very right thing to do.
So entirely unexpected.
Commander of Apollo 11 and first man to set foot on the moon and Diana Krall performed Fly Me to Moon at your funeral.
That’s a trifecta in any book.
ps – anyone making notes for when the time comes and my ashes are scattered in the out going tide, you can ask Diana Krall to come sing and she can choose the song.
fly me to the moon let me play among the stars fill my heart with song
There are worse songs to have stuck in your head for the last 48 hours.
There are a lot of worse songs to have stuck in your head.
This is the funny part though.
Many of them are this same song.
According to Wikipedia, Fly me to the Moon was recorded and released by any number of well known vocalists as the song In Other Words between its release in 1954 and 1960.
It wasn’t until 1960 when it was recorded by the wonderful Peggy Lee, that Ms. Lee convinced the song writer, Bart Howard to change the name to Fly me to the Moon.
It wasn’t until 1964 that Frank Sinatra recorded the song with Count Basie with a re-arrangement in 4/4 time in place of the original 3/4 time.
A factoid that I can repeat but is completely meaningless to me.
I am happy to report that it is not the voice of Mr. Sinatra that has been going through my brain the last couple of days.
I am not sure what the result on my psyche that might have.
Nothing against Mr. Sinatra or his voice or his talents.
He just not my cup of tea so to speak.
Also in one of those quod-hoc-propter-hoc mental sequences I have this Sinatra block that plays in mind whenever I meet up with Mr. Sinatra in my daily sojourn.
The mental sequence goes like this …
The Johnny Fontaine character in the movie, The Godfather is modeled on Frank Sinatra.
Fontaine sings at the opening wedding scene in the movie, The Godfather.
When Fontaine walks onto the wedding scene he is dressed in a white tux and black bowtie.
The first time my wife saw the movie, The Godfather, when Fontaine walks onto the wedding scene, she said, “I didn’t know Pee Wee Herman was in this movie.”
What do you think of when you watch The Godfather?
I think of Pee Wee Herman.
Somehow I think that story could make Francis Ford Coppola cry.
What do you think of when you hear Frank Sinatra sing?
I think of Pee Wee Herman being in The Godfather.
Somehow I think this thought would get me slugged by Mr. Sinatra.
He did slug Mario Puzo after the movie came out according to some sources.
What do I think when I see Pee Wee Herman?
I think of Don Corleone slapping him, saying, “You can act like a man!”
Goodness but its lonely being me some days.
So back to the song.
I was looking for a song on You Tube the other day.
Of late I have been listening to the music of Tatiana Eva-Marie & Avalon Jazz Band of late (go ahead, it will make your day) and one of the suggested songs by You Tube when I was searched French jazz singers, over there on the right hand margin of YouTubem was this video labeled, Emil Ernebro and Zandra – Fly Me To The Moon and I clicked on it.
It was a two people set up, vocalist and guitar with an stage empty of other musicians but filled with instruments.
The simple setting, like two bands members after a show singing for the pleasure of singing caught me attention.
In the book, The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk writes about hearing a young singer at an audition:
The girl seemed to be singing for the pleasure of friends, rather than for an urgently desired job. This was no great voice, nor even a professional one. It was just such singing as a bright girl who had a love of music and a pleasant voice could accomplish, and it had that peculiar charm denied great performers, the caroling freshness of song for its own sake.
These words got etched in my brain and now I am sucker for music videos like this on You Tube.
I remember when MTV was launched and videos were produced that made the singing of almost any song a matter of life, death and the success of the free world.
With what a lot of these bands went through as portrayed in some of these videos, to sing their songs, it was a wonder anyone would every want to get into music.
Then there are those clips, those recordings of the singing of a bright girl who have a love of music and a pleasant voice with that peculiar charm denied great performers, the caroling freshness of song for its own sake.
Intrigued by the image with the song, I clicked on it.
And I was captivated by the singing of a bright girl with a love of music and a pleasant voice with that peculiar charm denied great performers, the caroling freshness of Fly Me to Moon for its own sake.
My intrigue and interest was rewarded by having the song playing in my brain for the last 48 hours.
Comes this morning when I starting typing in the words of the song because with everything going on in this world, that is what was on my mind because I can’t stop the music.
I start typing the lyrics and the rest of this post just spilled out of my brain through my fingers onto the keyboard.
I think that was evident.
So this post came together and all I needed was a link to the video in question.
Could I find it?
Nope.
When I searched, Fly Me to the Moon, Could I find anything else but Mr. Sinatra and the like as entries in You Tube.
Nope.
100s and 100s of links but not the one I wanted.
I was close to the point that maybe I didn’t really hear this song.
It was stuck in head, maybe I made it up in my head.
Replaying last Friday morning over in my brain, I came up with the scrap of information that in the video caption, was the mention that the guitar player in the video was ‘Sweeden’s [sic] premire guitarist’.
With this other piece of information on which hang my search, Fly me to Me Moon Sweden Jazz Great, I am happy to report, I found the video.
For your start to this week, and for no other reason, here is the singing of a bright girl with a love of music and a pleasant voice with that peculiar charm denied great performers, the caroling freshness of Fly Me to Moon for its own sake.
I can only imagine what it be like to write such a song.
I can only imagine what it would like sing such a song.
To sing with with a love of music and a pleasant voice with that peculiar charm denied great performers, the caroling freshness of song for its own sake.
But I can click on it a listen to with the best of them.
And that is good enough for me on a Sunday Morning.
There are worse songs to have stuck in your head.
The lyrics are fun, too.
Fly me to the moon And let me play among the stars Let me see what spring is like On Jupiter and Mars In other words hold my hand In other words darling kiss me Fill my life with song And let me sing forevermore You are all I hope for All I worship and adore In other words please be true In other words I love you In other words I love you
Fill my heart with song And let me sing forevermore You are all i hope for All I worship and adore In other words please be true In other words I love u
No Haiku For You 