Baking the Cake

 

It’s a multilayered apocalyptic confection, suitable for a world addicted to dystopian hedonism.   Irreconcilable political ideologies, the plutocracy and the new class of “influencers,” have found the perfect recipe for destroying democracy.  And yet we go on, one step in front of the other, as if life can continue like this.  I’ve avoided these issues in my blog, but not in my mind, so time for a polemic catharsis.

To borrow from Dickens, the human race, like Joseph Marley, now wears the chain it forged in these times, having “made it link by link, and yard by yard; [and] girded it on of [our] own free will, and of [our] own free will [wear] it.”  I am now mixing metaphors (chains and cake), flailing for understanding.

We have embraced the kleptocratic emperor who wears no clothes, so transparent in his horrific iniquity and ignorance, but so in sync with popular culture, bolstered by social media.  We have become vassals to the very technology we now can no longer live without (somehow we managed before the ubiquity of the smart phone).  An agnotological oven has baked the cake and forged the chains.

It’s become a topsy-turvy world where an indoctrinated post-truth minority has turned the Bill of Rights and the Constitution on its ear.  The archaic Electoral College was almost toppled by its vulnerability to manipulation in the last election and state Republican bodies are now arranging for the members of the College to become their marionettes. 

The ideals of the Democratic Republic are under siege.  The Supreme Court was the first to topple.  The imagined rights of individuals hijacked those that the social compact of the Constitution was supposed to ensure.  One only has to consider the endless jousting over vaccines and mask mandates in a pandemic that has killed one million in the U.S.  Or the “rights” of military-style weapon owners transcending the right of society to live safely.  Only a morally bankrupt society would tolerate more guns than there are citizens.

The previous administration laid the long-term groundwork for January 6, and its execution on that fateful day using mob psychology.  Sedition, an act of a third world country was perpetrated in front of our own eyes, and yet here we are more than a year later still waiting for justice to prevail. 

The pandemic hastened supply side issues, labor shortages, the flooding of the financial markets with liquidity, and now, the consequence, inflation.  This will be borne on the backs of those who can least afford it with increases in transportation, housing, and food outweighing other inflation measures.  Not discussed much is the elephant in the room: as the Federal Reserve increases interest rates, the current National Debt of $30 Trillion will have to be financed at higher interest rates, a self-fulfilling prophesy (in the absence of higher taxes on the rapidly growing uber-wealthy class) of either default or still higher inflation in the future so debt can be retired with depreciated dollars.  One only has to look at the US Debt Clock which is a real time pulse of our economy and debt.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine assaults our senses daily, accompanied by a feeling of helplessness without risking a nuclear war.  It is far beyond my understanding to discuss this horror in any kind of detail.  Finger pointing can be found for whatever position one wants to take.  Putin very quickly referred to slaughtered Ukrainians as “fake news.”  Doesn’t this resonate?  We have forged the chains of gaslighting over years of social media.  Four years of the prior administration made “fake news” the centerpiece of how to manage its citizens where truth/lies are fungible according to one’s own belief and feelings.  In fact, feelings are as valid as scientific evidence. 

How all this will end is anyone’s guess; nothing is beyond the realm of possibility, including a civil war or a nuclear war between East and West.  Civil war is “easier” to imagine than the latter, but the April 30 Wall Street Journal carries an opinion article by Peggy Noonan, Putin Really May Break the Nuclear Taboo in Ukraine which goes to that very place.  She makes a persuasive argument:  “It seems unthinkable, but American leaders’ failure to think about it heightens the risk it will happen.”

Indeed, we have forged the chains, link by link. By weakening democracy here we have emboldened Putin’s actions with heretofore unimaginable consequences.

 

The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb, known in the West as Joe-1, on Aug. 29, 1949, at Semipalatinsk Test Site, in Kazakhstan

Bill Mays’ Stories of the Road: This Book Swings!

 

A guy walks into a bar and says “set ‘em up, Joe, I got a story you oughta know” – but it’s not about “a brief episode,” but the tapestry of what constitutes an exceptional musical life.  Bill Mays’ Stories of the Road, the Studios, Sidemen & Singers: 55 Years in the music biz is a unique collection of eclectic stories which flow in such a way that you can hear the author’s voice, and his passion.

 

To me, it is more than the book’s blurb boasts: “a delightful, humorous, and entertaining collection of anecdotes from a musician who has truly done it all.”  There are 25 chapters in this 173-page book which in the aggregate is a tutorial about what it is to play music at Mays’ level, earn a good living playing nothing but music, all while revealing secrets us mere “amateurs” can only speculate about.

 

What separates a “professional” from an “amateur” pianist such as me?  “How to Tell If You’re an Amateur Musician” by Justin Colletti is a revealing article on the subject, very accurate in its assessment, other than really making clear how much an abyss there is between the two. Mays’ book underscores those differences but Colletti’s article makes me feel a little better about them.

Here I must digress.  Bill Mays and I are about the same age and have similar middle-class backgrounds, his on the West Coast (CA) and mine on the East Coast (NY).  We were raised on the music of the 50s and in high school we were ‘rebels,” more interested in cruisin’ than schoolin’.  It took a catalyst, a mentor, to bring us into the life for which we were best suited.  For Mays, that was a church choir director who was a professional trumpet player who recognized talent in the young man and took him to see the great Earl Hines and that experience changed his life: he knew immediately he wanted to play jazz piano.  It didn’t hurt that Mays’ father, although a preacher was a versatile musician, and his mother had a “sweet voice” and therefore he was from a musical family, and he was given gospel and classical piano lessons since he was five years old.

I on the other hand had little of those influences but it took a high school teacher, Roger Brickner, to set me on my indirect path to becoming a publisher.  Nonetheless, I did have some music lessons when younger, too few in retrospect, and if it were not for some wishful fantasy when I was around fifteen years old or so about becoming the next Elvis, I would not have briefly picked up the guitar.  That was serendipitous as the guitar revealed chord structure to me and even long after I abandoned piano lessons I would fiddle around with the piano, playing it not as I was taught, but with chords.  I long ago lost the ability to sight read other than the melody line and the chords and improvise the rest.

I know that it sounds “almost professional” but the chasm of ability between one such as Bill Mays and an amateur such as myself, at best a busker, is deeper than is apparent.  Simply put, I know enough to know what I don’t know and to this day I am in awe of the jazz pianist, especially one such as a Bill Mays.

This separation between the professional and the amateur can be best understood as the difference between a native speaking his/her language and a foreigner with a year or so training in that language.  Sure, the latter person can sort of understand some of the language, but to really speak it is to think in that language, not to try to translate it.

The great jazz musicians have that ability, playing alone, or playing with other musicians.  To me it’s always a wonder that they can instinctively play with each other, even transposing keys on the fly, and to play standard songs so abstractly that the original song is almost not apparent.

Not that all jazz is totally abstract.  What I love about Bill Mays’ renderings is that he rarely strays too far from the melody.  He can of course get into that other universe, but that is not his style.  Neither is it of one of my other favorite pianists, Bill Charlap who approached Bill Mays for a couple of lessons when he came to NYC.  Per Mays I advised more openness, fewer notes, and more space in his playing.  No wonder the two sound similar in a way, and I can hear some of the color of the playing of the late, great Bill Evans (Bills are wild!) in their work.

I’ve never seen Evans or Charlap play live, but I listen to their music all the time.  I’ve been fortunate enough to catch Mays a few times at the Colony Hotel in West Palm Beach.  Early next year we will see Charlap in person on a Jazz Cruise.

A few years ago a friend of mine, a bass player, David Einhorn, knowing how I feel about Stephen Sondheim and Bill Mays, gifted me a CD, Our Time, the second CD recorded by Tommy Cecil and Bill Mays of Sondheim’s music.  I immediately bought their first recording, Side by Side.  These are precious, priceless, so little of Sondheim’s music recorded in this style.

Amusingly, Mays recollects about their attempt to get a response from Sondheim regarding the recordings.  Although “Steve” acknowledged their receipt, he never did comment.  Gods are busy people!

The only similar recordings I know are the ones recorded decades ago by the Terry Trotter Trio, all of which I have, covering Passion, Sweeny Todd, and Company.  Interestingly, according to Mays, early in his career he sought Trotter for advice about professional career directions having admired Trotter, that advice freely given as so often is the case in the jazz world, a small world indeed when it comes to the leading performers.

To me, a particularly fascinating observation in Mays’ book is the following: Generally speaking, it seems we jazz musicians know a lot more about the world of classical musicians then they do of ours.  Indeed, we are often much more adept at playing in that style than the other way around – witness the lame attempts by some “name” classical players and singers to try to breach the divide. 

 

I’ve often thought that in my amateur world.  Sometimes we’ll meet a new acquaintance, one who has a beautiful grand piano in their home, so the natural question is “who plays in the family?” Frequently, the “player” is one with years and years of classical lessons (I’d give my right arm, no, make it my left leg for that advantage) but then comes the confession that he/she either can no longer play or rarely plays.  That would never happen to a jazz pianist (or even to me, who can be away from a piano for a month, but sit down and play as if I never missed a beat, if I have the melody line and the chords).

I’m sure that Mays and most other jazz pianists can play classical, perhaps not at the concert hall level, but their understanding of the genre is substantial.  I know that was the case with Oscar Peterson, who I saw perform in NYC when I was in college, but who also came back to live performance after his stroke, with a weakened left hand but his right hand making up for what his left hand lost.  Also, our favorite young jazz musician, Emmet Cohen, who we’ve seen live several times, is a skilled classical musician (love it when he drops in some Bach in his jazz phrasing) and is probably the most versatile of all jazz musicians today, playing any style of jazz.  He is remarkable.

Another amazing pianist who we’ve seen, also mentioned by Mays in his book, is the late great French jazz pianist Claude Bolling who is probably best known for his “crossover” work, walking the fine line between classical and jazz, particularly his Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano.

There are so many interesting stories here, not to mention laugh a minute moments, but most of all this book is about a guy who is totally in love with what he does best.  These range from live gigs at clubs, solo, or with “his” trio, or as a sideman, with an extensive discography and having worked in the world of film (as a performer and arranger), and as an accompanist to almost 200 singers, some of whom we’ve seen perform live and many of whom we’ve heard.

Whenever I’m asked the question what I would ideally have liked to have been if I were not a publisher, professional jazz pianist is right up there or writer (and when much younger, pitcher for the New York Yankees!).  Indeed: amateur, someone who does something out of love, and in my advancing age, I still have the piano and word-processor at my side every day.  Bill Mays’ book describes that alternative life, but I never had the supreme talent, nor learned skills, only the passion.  It is wonderful to have all three and few jazz musicians have “recorded” their experiences such as Mays has in this wonderful book.  It has that personal voicing as does his music.  Thanks, Bill!  

My room where it happens

 

 

Intimate Apparel Weaves Painful Truths at Palm Beach Dramaworks

 

This is a multilayered play by one of our foremost playwrights, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Lynn Nottage.  She juggles so many themes in Intimate Apparel, it dazzles.  In the hands of Palm Beach Dramaworks, this achingly lyrical play, set in lower Manhattan in 1905, is an abundance of disquieting truths, and underlying hopes.  The language of the play is ineffably beautiful.  

The playwright has created memorable and tragically flawed characters, falling victim to societal norms and personal adversity.  Intimate Apparel’s themes of isolation and yearning to be loved are universal. Although set in the early 20^th century, the play’s underlying racism, sexism, and division by religion or culture resonate today.  No wonder it was recently adapted as an opera, the playwright becoming the librettist; all sold out performances at Lincoln Center and soon to be shown on PBS’ Great Performances.

“I wrote Intimate Apparel in part because of my desire to get closer to my ancestors,” Nottage told PBD Producing Artistic Director William Hayes in a 2020 interview (available on YouTube).  “I wanted to understand what it might have been like for a single, Black woman at the turn of the century to try and forge a life in New York City despite all the obstacles she probably had to face. I also wanted to write a play for my mother, something that she would have loved to have seen, something that was in her gentle, loving spirit.”

Rita Cole is a heartbreaking Esther, a 35-year-old African American seamstress whose imaginative creations are sought out by her friends and wealthy matrons from high society.  She lives in a boarding house and has watched twenty-two women come and go during her eighteen years there.  Esther has been left behind in the contests of love and marriage.  She longs for their experience.  Cole reveals her character’s sadness and seriousness of purpose, preserving her sense of rectitude while saving all the money she’s earned over the years inside a quilt she made. 

 

Rita Cole and Jordan Sobel

 

Stealthily central to the play is the ethereal but forbidden love of two artisans, Esther and Mr. Marks. Her appreciation of fine fabrics and artistic creations are much-admired by her Hasidic merchant Mr. Marks tenderly played by Jordan Sobel.  Together, they marvel at the fabrics, with a subliminal yearning for one another, but their ethnicity and societal norms prevent even a passing touch.  Sobel sustains a sense of awkwardness because of the ethnic divide when Esther is near.  He too is enveloped by loneliness and need for love but is soon to be part of an arranged marriage.

Esther’s landlady Mrs. Dickson, and Mrs. Van Buren, her society patron, urge her to settle as they have.  They have been in loveless marriages.  

 

Gabrielle Lee and Rita Cole

Gabrielle Lee, as the boardinghouse landlady, sashays across the stage capturing her character’s pragmatic and confident attitude as well as her love for Esther who she treats like a daughter.  Mrs. Dickson’s unfortunate marriage, however, allowed her to escape being a washwoman like her mother who would caution: “Marry up,” showing her bleeding scarred hands “Look what love done to me.”  In a moment of foreshadowing Mrs. Dickson movingly warns Esther, Don’t you let no man have no part of your heart without getting a piece of his.

Rita Cole and Krystal Mosley

 

Her friend, for whom she also sews, Mayme, is robustly performed by Krystal Mosley.  She is a prostitute, and a singer and piano player at one of the saloons in “The Tenderloin” section of Manhattan (a red light district of night clubs and brothels).   She has a jaundiced view of men and ultimately becomes pivotal to the plot.  Mosley projects her character’s easy going, breezy aplomb.  When Esther is fitting Mayme for a corset she perfectly captures the irrationality of class issues telling Mayme about Mrs. Van Buren and the expensive corsets she has made for her:  You know that white lady I talk about sometime…. She keep asking me what they be wearing up in the Tenderloin. All that money and high breeding and she wore what you wearing.…What she got, you want, what you got, she want.

In spite of Esther and Mayme being from opposite sides of a moral fence, they are the best of friends.  Esther heartachingly shares the dream for her lifelong savings with Mayme: I own a quaint beauty parlor for colored ladies…. The smart set. Someplace east of Amsterdam, fancy, where you get pampered and treated real nice. ‘Cause no one does it for us. We just as soon wash our heads in a bucket and be treated like mules. But I’m talking about is someplace elegant.

Enter the catalyst, George Armstrong played by Jovon Jacobs (the only PBD veteran in the play) who at first has an epistolary relationship with Esther as he is working on the Panama Canal.  In a series of letters back and forth of escalating intimacy, Esther sees a means of marrying a man she’s never met.  

 

Jovon Jacobs and Rita Cole

 

The role of George is a multifaceted one and Jacobs embraces it with seething sexuality and raw emotion, playing both the villain and the victim.  He also fills the stage with his physicality.  Jacobs’ passion as George dominates his many monologues such as when he says of the “Panama project,” that has killed thousands of black laborers like himself: But when the great oceans meet and the gentlemen celebrate, will we colored men be given glasses to raise?

The play gradually shifts to betrayal of dreams as George is not as he represented himself in “his” letters and Esther, who is illiterate, has had to have her letters ghost written for her, mostly by Mrs. Van Buren who vicariously plunges into love on her behalf, the kind of love she herself has been denied.  

 

Gracie Winchester and Rita Cole

Mrs. Van Buren, played by Gracie Winchester, whose station in life is ensured by her wealth and her white ethnicity, is ironically one of the loneliest characters in the play and she forms an attachment to Esther who is completely unaware of her feelings.  Gracie Winchester lustfully portrays her character’s true feelings saying to Esther while drunk:  It is so easy to be with you. Your visits are about the only thing I look forward to these days. You and our letters to George, of course.

Those letters are an integral part of the play’s climatic moment, Rita Cole and Jovon Jacobs ascending to an unforgettable dramatic peak.

Self-deception, betrayal, and the vulnerability of women, shatter Esther’s dream of opening a beauty parlor for “colored ladies.”  George’s dreams of becoming a builder die away as he is a Barbadian immigrant without connections; those dreams fading into get rich quick schemes.  Mayme’s dreams of being a concert pianist long ago yielded to prostitution.  Yet despite all these headwinds, Esther’s intrinsic steadfastness and skill ultimately serve as her Phoenix.  The American Dream is so often seen as the exclusive province of WASPs in literature and theater; Nottage movingly shows us another dimension.

There are multiple scenes and settings, a challenge for Michael Amico, the Scenic Designer.  As scenes flow right into one another, his utilitarian solution is elegant, capturing the Belle Époque look and feel of the era, in a proscenium framed like a photograph.  From stage right to left, there are Mayme’s boudoir and piano, Esther’s boarding house bed, above that a small platform in which we see George in Panama, then Esther’s circa 1900 sewing machine, operational and symbolic, further, Mrs. Van Buren’s dressing room and finally Mr. Marks’ treasure chest of fine fabrics.

 

The Director, Be Boyd (her PBD debut), uses the full breadth of the stage to create dramatic movement, irrespective of the scene pocket “owned” by the character, the audience having to use its imagination.  It works.  Boyd’s experience as a teacher shows (in addition to being a director, she’s an Associate Professor, School of Performing Arts, at The University of Central Florida), asking her actors to fully embrace the theme of dreams denied.  The pacing of the first act may be a little slow, but necessary for each word to clearly land.  Those who patiently allow the action to simply unfold are well rewarded.

Lighting design by Kirk Bookman works with these pockets of scenes, lighting each area and flowing into the next with the action. There are subtle changes in lighting color and watch the lighting behind the curtains.

Roger Arnold’s sound design focuses on some original ragtime pieces that Dramaworks commissioned Josh Lubin to compose for the production, ones joyfully played by Mayme on her piano.  Transitional moments feature other music of the period as well as the sounds George might have heard in Panama while working on the canal.

Resident Costume Designer, Brian O'Keefe, has more than met the challenge of designing multiple period pieces, for George and the women of different socio-economic classes, many of them specifically called for by the playwright.  The authenticity of his hand sewn costumes adds immeasurably to the production.  There are the exquisite silk corsets and undergarments, multiple dresses, a man’s suit, and the beautiful smoking jacket which had to be hand created twice because it was impossible to unnoticeably transport it between two critical scenes.

A special call goes out to the props staff of PBD, particularly for the vintage sewing machine which carries the play’s arc, to the wig designer, Anne Nesmith, and to the Stage Manager Suzanne Clement Jones who successfully navigates the Director’s staging of this intricate play.

Lynn Nottage and Palm Beach Dramaworks have given us a window into a world of the past, one of uncomfortable truths about class, gender and race.  It is a courageous production, both in content and performance.  The play, which Variety called “note-perfect,” runs through April 17.

 

All photographs of actors in the play are by Jason Nuttle