As
an amateur pianist, I generally focus on the “classic” period of the Great
American Songbook, including Broadway, from Gershwin to Rodgers and Hammerstein
to Sondheim. I relate to that music, as
I do to classic jazz (not the so called “smooth jazz.”) Just let me listen to a
piano, bass and drums and I’m in heaven.
Think Oscar Peterson or Bill Evans and so many other wonderful jazz
pianists. A great vocalist such as a
Stacey Kent is an added bonus. And I
enjoy classical music, although my ability to play classical pieces on the
piano is limited to those that have been transcribed for fake books. In effect, I have to improvise much of the
music – not the intent of the likes of Beethoven, etc.
Although
my musical tastes sometimes extend to country and R&B, I do not relate to
most contemporary music, some of the so called “American Idol” sound. But I suppose I’m beginning to sound like my
parents, criticizing my teenage addiction to the music sung by Carl Perkins,
Gene Vincent, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, and I could
go on and on with that list. I still
enjoy occasionally listening to that music today, making me a nostalgist. (After all, that’s what half this blog is
about anyhow.)
My
teenage musical “taste” gives me an opportunity to post something that’s been
in my files for some 56 years now. Why I
kept it, who knows. Maybe for this
moment? New York City’s WMCA distributed
a weekly listing of the top hits at the local record stores where we would buy
our 45’s. This particular one was for the week of Dec. 20, 1957. I still can hear (in my mind) most of the
“tunes” listed on this particular sheet.
Coincidentally, number 15 on the list for that week was Hey Schoolgirl sung by “Tom and
Jerry.” They were a local pair, growing
up only a mile or so from me. Never
heard of them? Later they reverted to
their real names, Simon and Garfunkel.
They too tried to make a go of R&R but I don’t think any of their
songs at the time rose higher than the one listed here.
I’ve
tried to keep up with contemporary Broadway / West End musicals but except for
Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Claude-Michel Schönberg, nothing really
appeals to me. But I’ve been remiss in not seeing (yet) works such as Nine and Rent. There is a song from
each which I discovered in my fake books and I found myself playing them although
I had never heard them before.
From
the more recent of the two shows, Rent,
there is One Song Glory, which needs
to be appreciated in the context of the lyrics and the story, but even without
those, the music has a haunting leitmotif.
So I decided to make a video of my playing it, but it’s digital size is
too large for the limited software that BlogSpot offers, and to my chagrin I
discovered that BlogSpot’s video postings do not play on certain devices, particularly
mobile ones (where the entire digital world is moving – get with it BlogSpot!),
so I had to post my rendition on YouTube to play here. There are risks doing that, opening myself
for criticism – any professional knows that I am but a rank amateur, but that
doesn’t matter to me, I still enjoy playing.
Unlike
the other videos I’ve done its close up.
This is not because I’m wild about my hands. After all, they are, together, 142 years old!
: - ). But the sound was better with my
little digital camera nearer to the piano. One
Song Glory is a genre outside my traditional classic Broadway comfort
zone. In other words, it doesn’t come
naturally to me, but sometimes we have to forge into new territory….
The
musical structure of Growing Tall,
from Nine, on the other hand (no pun
intended), is closer to the traditional Broadway musical, so I’m more relaxed playing
this piece. Its digital size is within
the parameters of BlogSpot, so I can bypass YouTube (although it may render it
unplayable on some devices, sorry). Getting Tall is a very evocative
conceit, the younger self counseling the mature version of the same
person.
Learning more,
knowing less,
Simple words,
tenderness part of getting tall.
Hopefully,
that tenderness comes across….
