Sunday, April 30, 2017

Duke Ellington: America's 20th Century Music Man


This weekend we commemorate the birth (April 29) of an American who painted our world with music. And listening to the music of Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) is akin to attending a lavish banquet featuring an array of fine courses, good wines and pleasant company. It is all so very satisfying. For the past thirty years, it's been a joy to grow in the understanding and appreciation of Ellington, the most prolific American composer in the 20th century, as one of the nation's most innovative musical entertainers. 

Ellington at the KFG Radio Studio, Aurora, Colorado, November 3, 1954

I discovered Ellington "late" most likely because I was immersed in his '40's sound at an early age and grew up thinking there was nothing new. He was born in Washington, DC in 1899 and spent his early career there while learning his trade. He wrote what he called "American music," a unique blend of his creative genius and elements of jazz, blues, classical, swing, bop, and popular song. Ellington appealed to a wide audience, but the appeal was compartmentalized and so broad that you would be hard pressed to find someone who liked everything he composed. I think the one element that unified his work was elegance. Early on, that came from his training as a pianist and was bolstered later by impressionistic classical influences. Also, much of that elegance came from his long-time association with the classically trained composer, arranger and pianist, Billy Strayhorn.

I took a special interest in Ellington when I began listening to the music of the British composer, Frederick Delius. Delius's music left me spellbound then. It was rich, melodic, and complex. Later I learned it was so much that it is considered some of the most difficult music to realize in the classical catalog. As early as the 1880's, his compositions incorporated motifs and melodies from the songs of ex-slaves working on the orange plantations he managed along the St. Johns River in Florida. Those musical themes would appear frequently throughout his career. Ellington had similar interests and it would be quite natural that he would appreciate Delius. In fact the appreciation and influence was so deep that Ellington eventually composed and recorded a tribute - In A Blue Summer Garden - to Delius.






Today we commemorate the legendary Duke Ellington on what would be his 118th birthday. Here are two of Ellington's finest moments. The first one is universally recognized and comes from the orchestra near its peak in the early 1940's. The second, from 1965, is lesser known but still full of all the magic the master and his orchestra possessed.










Smooth, high brow, faultless, sophisticated, American. All of these words describe the music that came out of the world of Ellington as a composer, performer, and conductor. For fifty years he defined jazz in his own way with his superbly talented jazz orchestra, surviving the onslaught of bebop, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. His discography includes over seventy hit records out of hundreds of releases spanning seven decades. Album sales remain strong four decades after his death.

We end with a historic moment in jazz history: Duke Ellington and his orchestra at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Jazz was changing from a dance band to smaller ensemble format and at the same time competing with the rise of rock and roll. Ellington decided to link two compositions with a free-wheeling sax solo. Many jazz historians agree that this was a landmark performance that not only gave the band concept renewed life but also gave jazz a new and expanded direction in sound and listener experience. 







Tuesday, April 25, 2017

First Lady Of Song, Ella Fitzgerald: Her Centennial Year


Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the "First Lady of Song," the jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, In 1934, Ella Jane Fitzgerald wanted to dance at an amateur night at the Apollo in Harlem, but was intimidated by other dancers and decided to sing instead. It was the beginning of a career that took her magnificent voice through the big bands, to jazz, bop, and the Great American Songbook. With a voice ranging from smoky to bright she put her signature on every note and sharp diction on every word. For people who like to immerse themselves in lyrics, Ella was unbeatable. And when she forgot those lyrics or let the spontaneity flow, the scat singing was priceless. 


The First Lady of Song in 1960                             Erling Mandelmann

I saw her perform once in an overcrowded and hot venue in Washington. After a few songs, the crowd didn't mind the environment. She had us wrapped in music for over two hours and left us wanting more after several encores. Everyone had a great time that night, especially Ella. Looking back on that concert, I realize how significant it was. Ella had turned 50 and completed her famous Songbook series a few years earlier. And though her peak years were coming to an end, what she had left exceeded the best of what most 20th century singers ever offered. She went on to perform another quarter of a century dazzling audiences everywhere. Ella passed away almost sixteen years ago, but she's still making her mark, living on through a huge discography and video record. In all, it is an immense, if not iconic legacy.


Fitzgerald and President Reagan at the White House in October 1981

Throughout her very public life, Ella Fitzgerald remained a private, if not shy, person. Were she receiving a birthday cake today, I can envision a broad, approving smile and nervous glances from squinting eyes behind those big bottle bottom glasses. She'd respond with a heart-felt "Thank you, thank you," and move into the comfort and safety of song.

Here she is in 1964 performing two Johnny Mercer jazz standards for the last of the Songbook albums - eight in all - produced by Norman Grantz and released over an eight year period. The series has never been out of print and remains a hot seller after more than fifty years:









In almost sixty years, few recordings in vocal jazz can approach the significance and near-perfection of Fitzgerald's interpretation of the Great American Songbook. To me, nothing since has quite matched it and I doubt anything in the future will without some extraordinary changes within the music industry and jazz itself. 

Though she left us in 1996, Ella simply "is." I can only imagine the look on the faces of the heavenly hosts when she waltzed through those pearly gates scat singing all the way. So here's a happy centennial birthday wish going up to the First Lady of Song. Simply incomparable. Maybe too marvelous for words.  




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Mandelmann photo, commons.wikimedia.org
White House, Item C4495-9A, President Reagan with Ella Fitzgerald after her performance for King Juan Carlos I of Spain in the east room, 10/13/81; Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Simi Valley, California.

Text:
wikipedia.org



Saturday, April 22, 2017

Earth Day, My Way




I enjoy celebrating Earth Day. In some way, in fact, a celebration of the planet takes place in our home every day. And it happens in spite of the full-on seizure of environmental themes by the radical left - the green movement - that came with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. Even the unhinged need an anchor but it's sad they selected such a universal idea. In the last generation it's even sadder because new personal media devices often isolate us even more from the outside, making it more difficult to experience, understand, appreciate, and protect our planet.  Five generations ago the Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, spent his last summer in the United States in the Czech settlement of Spillville, Iowa. In two weeks there immersed in the environment of fields, farms, and families under the open skies of the prairie he composed what has become known as the American Quartet.


   

All of my adult life, I've fought hard to live in nature and experience it with the fervor that Dvorak found. These words, first heard in 1971, were my inspiration, more at revelation:

...we divide our spirit in two parts, what we do and what happens to us. This is the great illusion. There's really no difference as the joyous ones in the heavens know. What happens to you as well as what you do is fundamentally your doing. And when we say it's your doing, it's not the ordinary you that you call your ego or your conscious mind, it's a deeper you than that. It's the you at which you are one with nature for man and nature form a single pattern of activity, one process, just that man is a little bit more complicated than the trees. But he goes with them and the whole thing is one single process. It isn't that nature pushes you around or that you push nature around. If you are awake, if your eyes are wide open and you look at things freshly instead of with your ordinary patterns, ordinary ways in which you have been taught to think, you see that the whole process of life is something that just happens. The Buddhists call it tathata. We translate that "suchness," "just like that."
If you think that the world is going somewhere, that there are certain things that are supposed to happen and there are certain things that are supposed not to happen you never see the way it is like music. Music has no destination. We don' play it in order to get somewhere. If that were the way, the best orchestras would be those who got to the end of the piece the fastest. Music is a pattern which we listen to and enjoy as it unfolds. In the same way, "Where is the water going?" Where do the leaves go? Where are the clouds going? There not going anywhere because nature understands that the point of the whole thing is to be here, to be wide awake to the now that is going on. So when you listen to music you don't try to hold in your memory what is past or to think about what's coming. You listen to the pattern as it unfolds and so watch it as it moves now. It's a dance. And dancing is like music for when you dance you dance just to dance. You don't aim at a particular place on the floor that is your destination of the dance. You listen to the music and you move your body with it [as if] your eyes are following the patterns of the water.
he secret of...life is to spend some time every day in which you don't think but just watch, in which you don't form any ideas about life but look at it, listen to it, smell it, feel it. And when you get rid of all the talk in your head, all the ideas about what I do as distinct from what happen to me or what's the difference between man and nature or between what's mine and what's yours it all goes. and it's just the dancing pattern, what the Chinese call "li," the word that originally meant the markings in jade, the grain in wood, or...the pattern on water. When you let go of the definitions, of the attempt to try to pin down nature, to pin down life in your mind so that you can feel you are completely in control of it, its all based on the idea that you're different from it, that you have to master it. When you don't pin it down anymore, when you don't try to cling to it as if it was something different from you then your whole life has about it the sensation of flowing like water. It always goes away. but it always comes back because away and back are two sides of the same thing. Let it go!

Father Mississippi                                 Walter Inglis Anderson, American, 1963


And here is the foundation upon which that revelation took place:

Psalm 104

 1 Praise the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. 2 He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent 3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. 4 He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. 5 He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; 8 they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. 9 You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth. 10 He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. 11 They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. 12 The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches. 13 He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work. 14 He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate-- bringing forth food from the earth: 15 wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart. 16 The trees of the LORD are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 There the birds make their nests; the stork has its home in the pine trees. 18 The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the coneys. 19 The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. 20 You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. 21 The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. 22 The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens. 23 Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. 24 How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-- living things both large and small. 26 There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. 27 These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. 28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. 29 When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. 30 When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. 31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works-- 32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke. 33 I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD. 35 But may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more. Praise the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD.



Earth Day 2017 will be ending shortly in our world but these passages where East meets West tell us that every day is an Earth day. For me the celebration indeed flows like water. It is a joy to be immersed in nature. Everyone should experience it and I hope these words move you to that realization.




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Anderson painting, porterbriggs.com

Text:
First quotation, Buddhism: Man and Nature, Alan W, Watts, Hartley Films, 1968
The Holy Bible, New International Version, 2011, Psalm 104

Friday, April 21, 2017

John Muir: Dissolving The Boundaries Between Self And Nature




The great American naturalist and conservationist, John Muir (1839-1914) was born on this day in Dunbar, Scotland. Through his efforts and the movements he supported with such fervor - he founded the Sierra Club - we can enjoy the spectacular wildness that is Yosemite National Park. His efforts also help establish the national park movement that today provide us with more than 400 units administered by the National Park Service. In addition, there are more than 6500 state parks and thousands of local parks and preserves to enjoy. Although Muir focused on the preservation of wilderness his work was a model for cultural preservation, a movement begun largely with Civil War commemorations late in the 19th century.


Muir in his beloved Yosemite Valley in 1890

By nature, Muir was a wanderer physically and emotionally building upon his studies in botany and geology as he traveled. In 1868 he saw Yosemite Valley for the first time and soon realized he had found his calling in the world of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This is how he described the revelation in his autobiographical notebook:

There are eight members in our family....All are useful members of society - save me. One is a healer of the sick. Another, a merchant, and a deacon in good standing. The rest school teachers and farmers' wives - all exemplary, stable, anti-revolutionary. Surely then, I thought, one may be spared for so fine an experiment.
... the remnants of compunction - the struggle covering the serious business of settling down -gradually wasted and melted, and at length left me wholly free - born again! I will follow my instincts, be myself for good or ill, and see what will be the upshot...As long as I live, I'll hear the waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.

Oh that we should be so lucky to follow our instincts and be ourselves.

For comprehensive information about the life and mission of John Muir,  visit the John Muir Exhibit at the Sierra Club website.  In addition, Yosemite National Park has a fine tribute to Muir at this link.



Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The Great San Francisco Earthquake: April 18, 1906


In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake shook the town. On that date earth science was a very young science. The idea that San Francisco sat astride two massive and drifting plates, one of which was moving toward Alaska, would have been laughable. Fifty years later, such thinking was widely accepted in the theory of plate tectonics.

On that morning 109 years ago and in the days that followed, "theory" wasn't on the minds of San Franciscans. They wanted to survive. This is how the opening paragraphs of the National Archives entry describe the event:


....Though the quake lasted less than a minute, its immediate impact was disastrous. The earthquake also ignited several fires around the city that burned for three days and destroyed nearly 500 city blocks.

Despite a quick response from San Francisco's large military population, the city was devastated. The earthquake and fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left half of the city's 400,000 residents homeless. Aid poured in from around the country and the world, but those who survived faced weeks of difficulty and hardship.


The survivors slept in tents in city parks and the Presidio, stood in long lines for food, and were required to do their cooking in the street to minimize the threat of additional fires. The San Francisco earthquake is considered one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.


You can read the rest of the article and view scores of historic photographs and documents related to the event here. The National Park Service has a fine resource newsletter on the quake. Below are several stereoscope cards from the family archives showing the scene following the earthquake and fire.









If you want to see remnants of the earthquake first hand and learn a bit more about it, plate tectonics, and continental drift there's no better place in my opinion than the Earthquake Trail at Point Reyes National Seashore. [Point Reyes is a spectacular resource in the National Park Service. Plan two or three days minimum to explore all of it.] The Seashore is accessible from Highway 1 at Olema about eighteen miles north of the Golden Gate. The trail - an easy half-mile - is at the Bear Valley Visitor Center. The trail's focal point is the famous old fence displaced eighteen feet by the quake.




In Alaska in 2000 I experienced one serious earthquake - 5.5+ on the Richter Scale - that scared me. It lasted lasted less than a minute and was strong enough to keep me and several visitors at Chugach National Forest's Begich, Boggs Visitor Center swaying in our seats in a dark theater.  When it was safe to stand and walk we emerged from the building to the sound of thunder and several small rock slides tumbling down the mountain across the Portage River next to the center. Our guides told us not to worry because earthquakes happened all the time at the site. Later in the day they acknowledged that we experienced "a good one." 
Easy for them to say! 

 

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Easter 2017


Christ is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!



Christ As The Redeemer Of Man                      William Blake

As we approach the close of the Festival of the Resurrection of our Lord here are some sights, sounds, and words to help us recall the joy of the day and keep its meaning alive in us in days to come.







Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;

endless is the victory, thou o'er death hast won;

angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
kept the folded grave clothes where thy body lay.


Refrain:
Thine be the glory, risen conquering Son,
Endless is the vict'ry, thou o'er death hast won.


Lo! Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb;
Lovingly he greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
let the Church with gladness, hymns of triumph sing;
for her Lord now liveth, death hath lost its sting.


No more we doubt thee, glorious Prince of life;
life is naught without thee; aid us in our strife;
make us more than conquerors, through thy deathless love:
bring us safe through Jordan to thy home above.


Easter Changes Everything!


The Angel Rolling Away The Stone From The Sepulchre            William Blake, 1805





For we have here no continuing city,

but we seek the future.

Behold, I show you a mystery:
We shall not all sleep,
but we all shall be changed
and suddenly, in a moment,
at the sound of the last trombone.
For the trombone shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed.
Then shall be fulfilled
The word that is written:
Death is swallowed up in victory.
O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Lord, Thou art worthy to receive all
praise, honor, and glory,
for Thou hast created all things,
and through Thy will
they have been and are created



Rise Heart, The Lord Is Risen!






Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.
Sing his praise without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand,
that thou likewise with him may'st rise;
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part with all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name, who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is the best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song pleasant and long;
Or since all musick is but three parts vied and multiplied.
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.



Image result for salvador dali the ascension of christ
The Ascension of Christ                                                    Salvador Dali, 1958


Christ is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!





Sources


Photo and Illustrations:
Blake image, collections.vam.ac.uk, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Dali image, wikiart.org

Text:
Brahms Requiem text, www. classical-music.com



Friday, April 14, 2017

Good Friday 2017


Christ Nailed to the Cross: The Third Hour                William Blake, 1803-06





O man, bewail your great sin;
For this, Christ from his Father's bosom
Went forth and came to earth.
Of a virgin pure and gentle
He was born here for our sake,
He was willing to mediate.
To the dead he gave life
And conquered all sickness
Until the time came
That he should be sacrificed for us,
To carry the heavy burden of our sins
Upon the cross itself.

J.S. Bach - St. Matthew Passion:
35. 'O man, bewail your great sin'




Two pages from the St Matthew's Passion in Bach's hand



Sunday, April 9, 2017

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday 2017




The Bible pictured above served my family well beginning in the 1890's. As one of my earliest memories I recall my parents carrying it every Sunday to Mount Calvary Lutheran Church a few blocks from our home. It's too fragile for use these days and now occupies an honored place in our family archive. The book becomes special to me on Palm Sundays. Among the near eighty years of memorabilia inside are a dozen or so treasured palm crosses from my childhood.

Today is Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday, the last Sunday of Lent, and the beginning of Holy Week. On this day, Christians around the world commemorate the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. It is also a time to remember the Passion history as preparation for the Holy Week experience. Readings for the day recall the anointing of Jesus, the institution of the Lord's Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus's trials before Caiaphas and Pilate, the crucifixion of Jesus, and His burial.






All glory, laud, and honor to you Redeemer King,
To whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.

You are the king of Israel and David's royal Son,
Now in the Lord's name coming, our King and Blessed One.

The company of angels are praising you on high;
Creation and all mortals in chorus make reply.

The multitude of pilgrims with palms before you went,
Our praise and prayer and anthems before you we present.

To you, before your Passion, they sang their hymns of praise.
To you, now high exalted, our melody we raise.

Their praises you accepted; accept the prayers we bring,
Great author of all goodness, all good and gracious King.

All glory, laud and honor to you, Redeemer King,
To whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.



Theodulf of Orleans, 750/760-821




On the Sunday following this Passion Week we celebrate a 2000 year-old event that changes everything.



Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
early 20th century postcards from OTR family archives

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