Scotch and Soda

I haven't yet made a list of all the songs that were significant to my life.  If I did, "Scotch and Soda" by the Kingston Trio would be in the top 10.  Songs we loved often take us back to a specific time and a specific love, now lost to time but not to memory.

<

The Billboard Music Awards 2016: Pathetic

I watched the Billboard Music Awards last night on television.  I could hardly believe my eyes or ears, that anyone would put such talentless and artless crap on television and call it music.

Britney Spears did a kind of slow walk-through of a dance(?) routine, singing or chanting or making barely audible sounds in any case.  Her routine was very simple and meaningless, like something a child would learn in grade school for an entertain-the-parents play.  Also, the words were stupid, the music awful.  Any teenage garage band could have done better.  The people in the audience clapped listlessly at the end of each number, like "Whatever."  No one seemed impressed.

Justin Bieber was also terrible.  Stupid songs, no tune, no beat, meaningless words, and Bieber's voice was completely blah.  The searing mediocrity of the performances was not hidden by the overuse of lighting effects and pyrotechnics.  One lady sang suspended from a large, burning clock.  Nice, but actual music and talent cannot be replaced with gimmicks.

There was one other singer, a young male who started playing an acoustic guitar, then moved to a room where a simulated downpour could be seen through the windows, where he then switched to piano.  His voice wasn't too bad, but again the song was to barf for.  My wife noted that the song "had no hook," and she was right.

The state of American music is at such a low point, there is opportunity for a new star to arise from the ashes.  Someone who can sing and play and provide a beat that makes one want to move his feet.  If they hurry, they won't have hardly any competition at all.  Somewhere out there is the next Elvis, the next Beatles, the next Michael Jackson.  Let's hope he, she or they show up soon.

Vince Guaraldi Died Forty Years Ago Today

Vince Guaraldi and Friend

Vince Guaraldi died on February 6, 1976, forty years ago today.

I have written a lot about Vince.  See my pilgrimage to his last gig site and his grave site at this post.  Vince Guaraldi was a talented jazz pianist and head of the Vince Guaraldi Trio (sometimes a quartet).  His most famous tune was probably "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," a cross-over jazz hit in 1962.  It was jazz, but became a popular hit, and played much on radio stations.  For me, the song had a soft, haunting quality to it, a soothing acoustic balm for a harried soul.

Guaraldi became most famous, however, when Charles Schultz of "Peanuts" fame asked him to provide background music for Peanuts televised cartoons.  Vince wrote a bunch of new songs just for "Peanuts" productions:  Charlie Brown Theme, Linus and Lucy, Snoopy and Woodstock, Joe Cool, Little Birdie, and others.  These tunes are smooth jazz.

Guaraldi's Christmas album, recorded in 1965, is still popular and you hear a lot of these songs during the Christmas season.  That's the time of year when more people find their way to this blog, looking for information about the man.

On the day he died, Vince's trio was playing at Butterfield's nightclub in Menlo Park, California, not far from Stanford University.  The band had just finished their first set, and Vince's last song was the Beatle hit, "Eleanor Rigby."  He then retired to his room at the Red Cottage Inn, just next door, to rest between sets.  While walking across the room towards the bathroom, he dropped dead.  The cause was a burst aortic aneurysm, not a heart attack, as so often been erroneously reported.

So every February 6, I think of Vince.  He died young, at age 47.  He had so much more to give, and that is the tragedy of his death, and that of all talented people whose lives are cut short.  His music lives on, however, and Vince is still an inspiration and role model to those of us who strive for musical achievement.

A Swingin' Safari! Great Jazz From 1962 #jazz #swing

When I was in high school, I lived in San Jose, California with my parents. They ran a music school for guitar in Salinas, California, and on Saturdays would drive there to teach. One Saturday in 1962, I tagged along. There is a stretch of highway there that is lined with tall Acacia trees, and which was featured in Alfred Hitchcock's movie "Vertigo." As we were cruising through these trees in my father's 1961 Cadillac, a song came on the radio that I had never heard before. It was called "A Swingin' Safari." I loved it immediately and was thoroughly enchanted by it. Now, all these years later, I still hear it playing in my head whenever I drive that tree-lined highway.

Thanks to YouTube, there are several good versions of this song in video, but I like this one best. Cute early 1960's girls don't detract a bit. See and hear for yourself.  If you can listen to this song and not feel happy, there is something wrong with you.

 

RIP B.B. King

The great blues musician died yesterday at age 89.  He will be missed.  I always loved to listen to and play bass to his hit, "The Thrill Is Gone."

Heaven is jammin' tonight.  RIP, B.B. King.

Kate Davis: More Bass and Brass!

More bass and brass from the talented Kate Davis!  And when I say "brass," I'm not referring to the horn section, because there isn't any.


 

Zen and the Art of Playing Bass

My Big Band music class starts up again tomorrow.  This morning I began practicing the songs (on my string bass) that I learned in the last session.  I noticed how much easier it is to read notes this time around.  What once was torture is now an achievable task.  You do something many times over and it becomes easier to do.  Funny how that works.  I am not "there" yet, but I am further down the road.

Before I started this class, my two string basses sat in their stands, untouched, gathering dust.  No more.  Now they both get handled a lot, played, tuned, adjusted and repaired.   I am forever tweaking the setup of each one, always seeking the best playability (the "action") and sound possible.  I even ordered a well known book to teach me better how to do that:  Chuck Traeger's book, Setup And Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound: A Manual for Players, Makers, And Repairers.

Mastering an instrument is similar to learning a new language.  It requires immersion, study, practice, contemplation and great patience.  Zen might help too, except that it is difficult to play bass while holding the full lotus position.  

Stick with it long enough and you may come up with something like "The Abe Train" (see video below).  The Abe Train is a jazz quartet of young musicians in their twenties.  They are from the San Francisco Bay Area and damn good.  The bass player really grooves.  Use headphones so you can hear every note of their rendition of "Autumn Leaves."

Kate Davis: an Angel With a String Bass

I just discovered this young talent tonight and became an instant fan.  As a double bass player myself (but not in her league by any means), she is truly an inspiration.

 

Some Late Thoughts on the 2014 Grammy Awards Ceremony

Busy, busy, busy doing tax returns.  That explains the big slowdown in my posting, if anyone cares. 

I watched the Grammy Awards, because my wife wanted to watch it, and I had no choice.  I liked seeing some of the old rockers like Kris Kristofferson, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.  I also enjoyed the western groups, and one new female country singer wore a very short dress, and she had fantastic legs.  Those were the good parts of the show.

I was annoyed at the new pop music acts and “artists.”  Some young woman with black lipstick was unveiled to smoke and flames by the raising of what looked like a giant Japanese lantern, revealing her underneath.  Then a troupe of people in tights all emulated grand mal seizures as they writhed around the stage, all while the black lipstick lady "sang."  The music was cacophonous and the words unintelligible.  The lady in black lipstick was later awarded a Grammy (a trophy resembling an old fashioned phonograph with a megaphone on top). 

 Then some black guys in white suits stomped around chanting and grunting to something called “Def Jam,” making me wish I really were def or that I could jam cotton into my ears.

 Surprisingly, the best music group was one from France, whose name I have deliberately forgotten, who wore what looked like white space suits, including helmets with black, opaque visors, so their faces were completely hidden.  Weeeeeeird.  It kind of reminded me of the Cone Heads from Saturday Night Live, with the space aliens explaining in a robotic monotone:  "We're from France."

There is a reason for all this dubious theater by the pop groups:  it is to hide the fact that they  don’t really have any talent.  Their songs are garbage, the lyrics the incomprehensible mutterings of the mad.  Without the giant lanterns, smoke, flames and space suits, they got nothing.

Towards the end of the ceremonies, Queen Latifa “married” 33 couples, some of whom were gay, right after some schmo with a weird haircut sang a non-melodic paean to the wonders of gay love.  How did this figure into a ceremony honoring the best singers?  It didn’t.  The left has control of the popular culture along with their control of the economy, the media and academia.  This enables them to continually propagandize us with their latest compulsions. 

"That Thing You Do" -- a Rock Band Movie by Tom Hanks: 1960's Authentic or Merely Cheesy?

If you like the history of rock music and Tom Hanks films, you may want to read this post at my other blog, "Playing Bass."  It's about Tom Hanks's film "That Thing You Do," a story of a rock band in 1964 that achieves sudden fame with a "one-hit wonder."  I found some aspects of the film authentic to the time period but there were some glitches.  For example:

Other blacks included a female singing group reminiscent of the Supremes, highly coiffed, dressed in pastel colors and looking pretty, but singing tunes even too cheesy for the early 1960's. In one scene they are singing "When you're holding my hand, you're holding my heart," followed by hand claps. I had a brief mental image of a doctor holding a beating heart during surgery as I suppressed a brief wave of nausea. C'mon! The Sixties were never that awful.

Read the whole thing here.

Zen and the Art of Playing Bass

Finally, finally, finally, I am making a serious effort to raise myself from the ranks of amateur bass players to professional bass players.

I have a long way to go.  But I have learned, thanks to a bass teacher named Dale Titus, that it can be done with patience and repetition.

Oh, the learning regimen is fairly traditional:  learn scales, learn modes, learn arpeggios.  Absorb scale theory and how it relates to chords and keys.  Learn every inch of the neck.

However, a lot of successful bass playing (or playing any instrument) is great execution.  Getting your fingers on the right fret at the right time, without string rattle or buzz, plucking those strings accurately and quickly -- those skills are hard to attain.  You attain them by playing exercises (Titus calls them "chop builders") slowly at first, concentrating on a good sound.  You then slowly increase the speed of playing those chops until you can do it quickly as well as accurately.

So much of learning an instrument is developing the muscle memory to play it well and right.  Break it into its various parts and learn each part well, taking as much time as you need to do it.  Keep at it on a daily basis.  If you learn one small thing each day, your knowledge and skill will accumulate faster than you think.

I think this principle works for mastering just about any skill or body of knowledge.   It's like the old but useful analogy of the snowball rolling downhill.

Janis Joplin, Colorized by Photoshop

Here's a Rock and Blues great.  I found an awful black and white photo of her on the web, and decided to enhance it with Photoshop.

Janis Joplin:

Dave Brubeck, Jazz Great, Dies at 91

Dave Brubeck, famous jazz pianist, has died.  He is probably most famous for the song "Take Five."  Here he is in 1966 playing this great hit.

See Rick Darby's poignant tribute to Brubeck at Reflecting Light.

So Long Andy Williams...See You on the Other Side

One of the many problems with aging is that you see "your world" slipping away.  The heroes you admired are dying off, and the world that was "yours," that was normal and known and comfortable, is dissolving like that airport in Stephen King's novel "The Langoliers."

When someone like Andy Williams dies...a part of you dies with him.  The memories flash, of dancing to his music, cheek to cheek with girls at a high school dance; of Edsel cars and drive-in burger joints with chocolate malts and french fries.  My 50th high school reunion is next month.  Ah, yes, the the Class of 1962.  How many of us are still on this side of the grass?

My high school was torn down after the Class of 1980 graduated, because rising home prices in Silicon Valley made it unaffordable to families with school age children.  Dropping enrollments caused many schools to close and mine was one of them.  Only a small section of the classrooms survives, along with the dilapidated gymnasium, now used as a community center.  A shopping center sits where the school once stood, and a deluxe condo development  has replaced the football stadium.  As time goes on, I get the feeling that the world I once inhabited is being erased.

Andy Williams was a great singer of ballads and love songs, with his warm, smooth voice.  When I think of him, I think of 1958.  I was only in the 8th grade then; most people hadn't yet read "Atlas Shrugged" (or even heard of Ayn Rand).  Eisenhower was president and Nikita Kruschev was pounding his shoe on the desk at the United Nations.  Beatniks were swarming over North Beach in San Francisco, writing and reciting bad poetry in funky little coffee houses, sporting beards and berets.

Today the neat cars on the streets back then are called "classic cars" and their modern replacements ugly and alien to me.  Elvis is dead.  Rock and Roll and Rhythm and Blues have been replaced with hip hop and rap, and modern pop is garbage, the anthem of the underclass, of drugs and drive-by shootings, gangs and kids born out of wedlock in increasing numbers.  Marriage has become obsolete, along with traditional families.  Hell, I am obsolete, and I do not fear my departure from this world.

Andy Williams sang many famous ballads during his career, like "Moon River" and "Born Free," but the song I loved best was "Are You Sincere?"  For me that song (released in 1958) captures the innocence of my youth, as well as the essence of Andy Williams.  Here it is, in the video embedded below.

Vince Guaraldi at the Piano: Derrick Bang's Book on a Great Pianist

I am reading Derrick Bang's recent book, "Vince Guaraldi at the Piano." I met Derrick online when he contacted me over my posts about Guaraldi, a personal hero of mine as well as Derrick's.

 Derrick's book is quite compelling, describing the exciting San Francisco jazz scene of the 1950's and Vince Guaraldi's place in it. Vince Guaraldi is well known for his hit tune "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" as well as his association with Charles Schultz and the comic cartoons of "Peanuts." Guaraldi supplied the original jazz accompaniment to "Peanuts" cartoons and television specials.

Vince was taken from us too soon when he died at the age of 47 from an aortic aneurysm, often incorrectly described as a heart attack. He had just played the last set of his life at Butterfield's nightclub in Menlo Park, California, when he took a break to relax in his nearby motel room. It was there that the aneurysm burst and Vince died instantly, without even a chance to have a last word or say goodbye. The date was February 6, 1976.

Intrigued by his music, I yearned to learn more about this enigmatic jazz musician. I visited his grave near San Francisco where he is buried in a common grave with his mother, Carmella. I visited the site of Butterfield's in Menlo Park and the motel next door where he died (the building that was Butterfield's was torn down some months after my visit).

Thanks to Derrick, I am learning a lot more about the life and career of Vince Guaraldi (known as "Dr Funk" among his fellow musicians). Derrick Bang's book "Vince Guaraldi at the Piano" was based on many interviews with the musicians with whom Vince played music, as well as access to newspaper clippings and other family records. He was allowed to peruse Carmella's diary and newspaper clippings of her son, and thus able to string together the disparate facts of Guaraldi's life and career. Derrick was also able to obtain photographs of Vince from throughout his life, from childhood on, from family members, singers and former band mates.

Vince Guaraldi at the Piano

There is a photograph of a young, clean-cut, tuxedoed Guaraldi with his lovely bride, Shirley, in 1953. Other photos show him performing with famous jazz musicians like Carl Tjader.

One of Guaraldi's former girlfriends told me that I have a "man-crush" on Vince Guaraldi, and she is no doubt right, but there is nothing gay about it. I love many men and women whom I never met and never will meet in this life. They inspire me with their creativity and passion for life, their courage, their heroism, their example.

Vince Guaraldi is one of them.    Not just because of his great music, but because he was a little guy with small hands and short fingers who should never have been a piano player, but who refused to quit.  Derrick Bang likens Vince to Charlie Brown, the Peanuts character who was one of life's perpetual losers.  Charlie never won a baseball game, never got the little red-haired girl he secretly loved, who only got rocks instead of candy in his Halloween sack, never received a card on Valentine's Day.

But Charlie never quit, never stopped trying.  Vince was like that.  He learned to use his small hands on the keyboard in highly effective ways and it worked.  He overcame many discouragements, firings and failures, determined to make an important mark on the music world.  He succeeded, and no doubt would have extended his fame and musical creations greatly but for his sudden death at a young age.

I feel that Vince's untimely death was a great cosmic injustice, and I feel like arguing his case before the Court of Heaven.  Then I remember it will do no good.  Heaven has its own ways and purposes and we can only accept what it decrees.  Still, there's a part of my mind that wants to fight about it.

Now I have to dislodge my kitty cat from my lap and get outside where I can light up a cigar and continue reading Derrick's great little book.  What can you do?  You can listen to the sampling of his music below and perhaps gain insight into my admiration for Vince Guaraldi.

The Song Feminists Hate: "Wives and Lovers"

Jack Jones recorded this song in 1963 and it was a best seller. Back then, of course, the "average American family" (if there was one) consisted of a man who went to work and a wife who stayed home, raised the kids, cooked the meals and did the shopping.  Today such families are rare, because wives have to be workers too in order to survive economically.  Feminists hate this song (and I love it) because it casts women in  a role where their main objective in life is pleasing their husbands.

I actually like women to be more of a partner than an underling, but I still like the old-fashioned romance of this song.

Strange Connections

Yesterday my colleague friend and I had lunch at a restaurant, and while there discussed famous people we have met or with whom we had some connection.

I think we all have had these connections.  I bragged about meeting Martin Sheen while working as an extra in the movie "Gettysburg."  I also told him about meeting Stu Cook and Tom Fogerty of the Creedence Clearwater Revival, and also Jorma Kaukonen, Paul Kantner and Jack Cassady of the Jefferson Airplane.  Those groups made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but to kids growing up today, they mean nothing.  I may as well say I once met Charlemagne.   Other famous people I've met include Jack Dempsey in his New York restaurant in August 1974 and members of the band "Chocolate Watchband," who appeared in "The Slender Edge" starring Sidney Poitier.

My friend had some interesting stories to tell as well.  Harry Chapin was a folk singer back in the 1970's and wrote and recorded a song I love (especially during my busy season), called "Cats in the Cradle."  In that song a dad tells how he never had time for his son while the latter was growing up, because he was too busy with work.  Nevertheless, the son hero-worshiped his dad, saying "Someday I'm gonna be like you, dad."  Years passed, and finally the dad had time to spend with his son...but the son was now too busy with his own career and family.  "My son had grown up just like me," he laments.

My friend's former wife had lived next door to Chapin in Long Island, New York and knew him and his family.  Her younger sister dated one of Chapin's sons (perhaps the one described in the song?)   My friend also once met Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, when my friend was only eight years old.

Harry Chapin died in a car crash in 1981.

So in celebration of the life and his great song, which always fills me with pangs of guilt during the busy season, let us listen to Harry Chapin singing "Cats in the Cradle."  Don't neglect your family, kids, time is short.

Lady GaGa sings "White Christmas" and Does an Amazing Job

I don't know what's up with the very weird (but nice) Lady GaGa. Lately she's been singing "American Songbook" old standards with Tony Bennett and also as a soloist. In this clip she sings the great old song "White Christmas," backed up by a traditional jazz ensemble, complete with string bass!  If she keeps this up I will become an official fan.

Proud To Be An Okie From Muskogee (Video, Merle Haggard)

Back in the late sixties and early seventies, Bro, our friends Bob and Danny and I, played rock music in bars and clubs around the Bay Area.  That was back when drug-addicted hippies were tearing down the country and trying to help the Communists conquer South Vietnam.  One of the songs we loved to play was "Okie From Muskogee" by Merle Haggard.  Bob used to amend one line - "We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy, like the hippies down in San Francisco do."  Bob changed that to "the hippies in the San Francisco Zoo."  We laughed like hell and had a great time.

 Here's the song, sung by a very young Merle Haggard.

The Last Song Played by Vince Guaraldi

Two years ago I made a pilgrimage to the site of Vince Guaraldi's last gig in Menlo Park, followed by a visit to his grave in Colma, California.  I posted an article about it here.  It was called "Searching For Answers:  the Death of Vince Guaraldi."  Vince was the famed jazz pianist who wrote and recorded the 1962 jazz hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," and whose trio provided the background music for Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" cartoons.  Vince's Christmas album is still popular and widely played every December.

Since posting that article, I have received notes, a previously unpublished photo and other information from various people who either knew Vince or loved his work.  One of them is writing a book about Vince Guaraldi.  See the above link to see all of the latest information.

Today I learned the names of the musicians who were with Vince on his last gig in Menlo Park.  The bass player was Seward McCain and the drummer was Jim Zimmerman.  Zimmerman was with Vince in his room at the Red Cottage Inn, between sets, when Vince collapsed and died suddenly of a burst aortic aneurysm.  Vince was walking towards the bathroom when he collapsed on the floor.  Zimmerman ran to get McCain and they tried to revive Guaraldi, but Vince had died.  The only good thing about it was that he didn't suffer; death was almost instantaneous.  His mother, Carmella, later told a magazine that she was glad, at least, that Vince died as he would have wished, i.e., while playing a musical performance.

That last gig started out well.  McCain reported that the nightclub, Butterfield's, was filled with customers and that the first set went well.  The last song that Vince Guaraldi ever played was "Eleanor Rigby," the Beatles' hit.  McCain stated that Vince had an exciting version of the song.

The day before, Vince had dinner at the home of Peanuts producer Lee Mendelson.  He complained about some chest discomfort, like indigestion.  Vince had previously had an EKG and a doctor's examination to discover the cause of his discomfort.  The doctor told him he was probably getting ulcers and gave him a useless prescription of pills.  Vince's death, therefore, was not due to any personal negligence of his own.  He knew something was wrong and tried to get it diagnosed and treated.

After Vince died rumors spread that he had suffered some kind of drug overdose:  heroin, or maybe cocaine.  However, those rumors have proved to be untrue.

More information on Vince's last night can be found at the link above.