Glenn Miller Festival 2009 a big hit

I  have  recently  fessed  up  to  the  fact  that  in  my  mind  life  as  we  know  it  stopped  in  the  1940's.  Fedoras,  double-breasted  wide   lapel  suits.   Smoking  was  considered  to  be  harmless  and  very  stylish.  And  our  enemies  were  easy  to  identify,  and  we  stood  in  line  for  hours  to  have  the  high  honor  of  placing  our  own  lives  at  risk  to   in  a  small  way  help  kick  their  arses.  Psycology  was  not  part  of  medicine,  let  alone  pop  culture.  A  "train"  was  a  transportation  vehicle,  clearstory  roofed  cars  with  steam  engines  belching  sound  and  smoke.    Then  came  the  1950's,  I  do  have  childhood  reflections  of  them.  Life  was  still  perceived  as  simple,  and  we  acted  accordingly,  but  new  dark  clouds  were  gathering  on  the  horizon.  Cold  wars,  atomic  weapons,  military-industrial  complex.   Truman  finally  gave  African-American  servicemen  the  "right"  to  serve  in  the  same  unts  as  whites.....but  life  was  still  miserable  for  them.   You  could  get  denied  service  or  assaulted,  for  merely  traveling  in  full  uniform  through  the  South.  The  North  was  politely  segregated,  real  estate  was  rented  with  ads  designating  "white"  and  "colored"  apartments.
Back  closer  to  the  topic:  Big  bands  were  holdovers  from  WWII,  and  my  parents  could  listen  and  cling  to  the  dream  that  life  was  still  relatively  problem-free.   Here's  to  nostalga...I  raise  my  mug  of  coffee  to  all  of  you  in  a  toast.....

It's a bit strange that -- though I grew up among lots of folks heavily into jazz, mostly big band and Dixieland varieties -- I've liked both Bluegrass and classic 'Country music' a lot more (Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Charlie Pride, etc.).  Oh, and don't get me started on my favorite, MoTown and related....  My friends were 'into music' (mostly brass), and we had a high school 'big band' which played mostly jazz favorites.  I sucked at playing my trumpet, mostly because I hated to practice.  (Reason?  The sounds I was creating were simply UGLY, and bore no resemblance to what was playing in my head). Before my father died a few years ago he asked me, 'Whatever happened to your trumpet?'  I honestly told him I simply didn't know.

One jazz memory, however... my discovery of Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond's album 'Time Out'.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_%28album%29 Wow!  I took it to a birthday party dance (freshman year of high school?) and played it there.  I remember the kids commenting that you couldn't dance to the music -- true enough.  I was still in love with the incredible stuff on that vinyl disc... (I got a copy on CD years later.  The clerk, a jazz buff, said, 'Hey, you got a great classic there!'  I think he thought I knew a lot about jazz.  I don't.  I simply let go of old loves very, very, very slowly and reluctantly.)

HOT  OFF  THE  WIRE  SERVICES  {REUTERS}:    Roman  Polanski,  78,  movie  director  who  jumped  bond  and  fled  to  Europe  31  years  ago  to  avoid  an  open  warrant  for  felony  statutory  rape,  was  arrested  when  he  attended  what  he  thought  was  his  own  banquet  awarding  him  a  "lifetime  achievement  award."   Turns  out  the  "award"  was  bogus,  he  was  lured  in  and  then  snagged  in  an  FBI  sting,  with  the  help  of  INTERPOL.   I  have  a  15  year  old  daughter,  she  is  sleeping  in  today  while    catch  up  on  the  collateral  damage  to  my  practice  and  my  personal  life  following  the  completion  of  a  major  trial.   This  is  very  very  sweet  for  me  to  savor  in  my  mind......I  have  reason  to  understand  full  well  how  crafty  sexual  predators  with  a  deranged  passion  for  13  year  old  children  carefully  spin  their  webs.   He'll  have  a  nice  retirement  in  ClubFed,  the  Federal  Penitentiary  for  those  who  continue  to  underestimate  the  true  goodness  that  still  lingers  since  America  was  assembled  as  a  country  by  the  founding  fathers.....the  eagle  is  hurt,  her  wings  have  been  damaged.....but  She  still  musters  the  strength  to  kick  some  serious  arse  where  villians  underestimate  her  determination.   If   they  have  trouble  finding  an  experienced  team  for  the  prosecution  to  sacrifice  their  practice  and  personal  lives   while  this  lowlife   drags  this  out,   they  can  call  me......I  will  be  lead  counsel's  wingman  pro  bono......  May  god  save  the  United  States,  and  our  honorable  courts.

Doc  Nolan:  Thanks  4   link  to  Chicago  Tribune's  obituary  of  Road  Yacht's  "Pinky."   Inspirational.
 
Doc,  did  you  borrow  my  vinyl  copy  of  "A  Love  Supreme"  by  John  Coltrane?   Or  maybe  I  just  hid  it  from  myself.  Your  inventory  of  fascinating  mind-stimulating  ideas  is  quite  a  sight  to  see.

i studied classical piano for 14 years. proficient enough, but the first song i ever played is still my favorite....heart and soul.  someone sitting beside me laughing and playing their part is the best part.....i love all genre except rap, no august rush here, but i too, love to hear the rhythms of and in nature.  my original piano still sits in my mothers living room, next to her collection of vinyls........

  

A quiet, calm, cool, clear morning just right for remembering having been given a ticket to see Brubeck and Desmond at about fifteen. Done up in blue blazer, pressed khakis, white button-down and navy and red club tie (half Windsor) with highly shined loafers over thick white socks, I was the mini image of a midwestern college boy.

A little worried going in about withstanding that much of that music, I needed, along with many others, to be ushered out when it was over and some acquaintanceships made that evening lasted until they died.


Too bad Polanski failed to follow the Jerry Lee Lewis pattern of keeping it all in the family and marrying the child.

Our next-door neighbor lady, Mrs. Allen, a piano teacher and old enough to have seen two WWs as an adult, referred to the big band product as "war music."

It was not a critical assessment but an opinion and she stuck with teaching the lovely melodies that had carried her through and that had me, at every opportunity, chin on the edge of the keyboard, worshipping her as she honored my request for Dvorak's Humoresque #7.

This, while not a keyboard version, had me misting over and I hope you like it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScSCILXXLnM

As an elementary school boy, I got into my Sunday duds and attended cheap or free classical concerts as often as I could. All alone but never lonely.




  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-umLy_5J3k&feature=related
 
playing the above when in recital was the norm.....yawn...., then one year....i interjected my version of the next link..was in big trouble with mother...oh well..was worth it to me. you couldn't keep us off of beale st. in memphis..
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bB5xL577r4
 
a tad rebellious....i wasn't aware of their personal life preferences....also would sneak with my best friend to the horse tracks, in hot springs...still do both...y'all have a nice day..
 

Stoney~ I too heard the Brubeck Desmond music at a concert.And many years later,several generations of Brubecks on that same stage,Chicago's incredible acoustic auditorium,built long before C.A.D.And the Jazz Showcase,wow. And the Kool Jazz festival in the park. Ravinia not so much,too far,to costly.And a jazz festival in upstate New York with my fisrt life partner,herself a victim of lung cancer.But, and most important to your post, I first heard Humoreque in a Warner Bros. cartoon.That was my first exposure to many classical pieces. Pinky,too. we laughed at that often.

y'all been coming south for a long time.......
 
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/260687/hot_springs_arkansas_one_time_organized.html?cat=8

Stoney, I love your words and the emotion and memories that spawned them. I love classical music (yes, Dvorak, especially symphonic; chamber music; opera; operetta if it's G&S; Broadway. I grew up hearing Daddy sing big-band era songs (along with Porter, Coward) of his youth; he'd played sax, and when my parents were first married he and friends played at Country Club dances (swing, I'm sure), he bringing all home, I was told, for breakfast afterwards. Cosmic error: I was born out of my time. Glenn Miller's sound is part of my babyhood, no matter what else came along.

Of Porter, today he doesn't get his due, which is scary. Many a writer has labored for days to get this marvelous alliteration (sorry I can't supply, myself, the hauntingly complex, lovely score beneath it):

"In the still of the night
as I gaze from my window
at the moon in its flight
my thoughts all stray to you.
Do you love me as I love you...
......(get to the good spot)
With the moon growing dim
on the rim of the hill
in the still still of the night...."

or, for sheer wit:

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking
was looked on as something shocking.
Now, heaven knows, anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words
now only use four-letter words writing prose.
Anything goes!

The world has gone mad today and good's bad today
and black's white today and day's night today
When most men today that women prize today are silly gigolos.

So though I'm not a great romancer
I know that you're bound to answer when I propose:
Anything goes!"

All that beFORE he took himself and his work seriously; he'd later produce magnificent, complex (well,. always he was complex, and demanded of the human voice an enormous range) often scandalous words and music even after a horseback-riding accident deprived him of legs -- though he did scream and curse when he returned to piano from hospital, "Damn! The pedals; I can't feel the pedals..."

Roadyacht:   I  remember  going  to  Ravinia  in  Lake  Forest  circa  1964,   Peter,  Paul,  and  Mary  were  rising  stars.  $4  for  each  of  us  to  get  in,  free  parking  on  the  grass,  sold  out.  That  was  the  "festival  seating"  price,  not  with  luxuries  like  good  positioning  &  chairs...lol.   Still  wonder  what  happened  to  my  g/f,     her  eyes  were  blue  and  sparkled  like  diamonds,   and  fool   that  she  was  she  thought  the  world  of  me.   Then  came  college,  we  went  in  separate  directions.   I  wish  her  well,  I  hope  she  found  the  man  of  her  dreams  who  fulfilled  her  old-fashioned  wish  to  have  someone  very  special  keep  her  barefoot  &  pregnant.   The  next  day  was  Sunday,  I  had  a  12  hour  shift  at  the  Pure  Oil  Company  gas  station,  Dundee  Road  exit  to  Edens  Expressway,  and  but  for  the  fact  that  my  best  friend  Mike  was  my  shift  partner  I  could  have  easily  been  so  tired  and  spaced-out  that  I  could  have  killed  us   both.  Drove  the  raggedy  old  tow  truck,  stick  shift,   towed  a   broken-down  car  away  from  an  accident.  Thank  god  the  "gumball  machine"  Mars  light  on  the  roof  worked,  little  else  did.   My  guardian  angel  musta  had  her  hands  full  {a  male  vision  of  an  angel  would  have  been  less  accepting  of  my  apologizes}......

...on the other hand, or the same one, in high school we slow-danced in dimness like PeterLake, or, in brighter light, shagged (not same meaning as Brits'). When I wasn't a wallflower, which, being shy, I often was.

Bert:  Did you know Mary Travers died last week?  She'd been battling leukemia, I believe it was that.
 
She was 72. 
 
 
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/arts/music/17travers.html
 
 
Nice article on Mary Travers re: her life and death from the NY Times.
 
 
I was so bummed when I heard this.  I think I didn't even post that day; I just didn't want to think about anything at all.
 
RIP Mary Travers
She wove us the sunshine....

Bert, I couldn't agree more on your comments about that scum-bag Polanski

I've listened to Big Band and Classical since I was a child and love it to this day. My 14 year old daughter even listens to it as I have exposed her to this great soound since her birth. It is the universal music.
 

  Humoresque lyrics:

Passenger must please refrain from

Flushing toilets while the train

Is standing in the station

I love you
 

Critchfield:  "Scumbag"  is  an  upgrade  for  Polanski.  Double  cell  him  with  Madoff.  They  can  drive  each  other  insane.

Stoney, I learned a different set of lyrics when a child; bet that melody has been used in many settings. I can't remember all mine,but it began, ""HAve you heard the whisper of the breeze?"

YOU MUST KEEP COPIES OF THE WONDERFUL SLICES OF YOUR LIFE YOU SHARE HERE, AND MORE. OLIVER WILL THANK YOU WHEN HE'S OLDER, and I hope he hangs also onto "warmening up"; it is so absolutely apt.

Like Robert's daughter, my children heard serious music. Before birth and after, I rocked them to it. They learned in their 'teens to like rock music, but the other stayed with them.

"They  died  with  their  boots  on."  Encore  channel.  Poor  Custer,  he  looks  like  a  girls  school  gym  teacher.

This is my very first post, as I am a relatively new reader, but this...I couldn't miss commenting on Glenn Miller and how dearly I love his music. I grew up very close to my grandparents. One of my clearest memories is driving with my grandmother, listening to CKLW-AM radio and seeing the joy on her face as she heard her big band favorites. She instilled the love of music in nearly everyone in our family, but those moments in the car and hearing her humming along at the kitchen sink to Dorsey, Miller, Crosby, Sinatra...they are as precious to me as the music itself, which helps keep her memory alive in my heart.   I'm getting married this November and it is bittersweet, as my grandparents are not with us to help celebrate. To honor them and celebrate something that they loved dearly, we're having a 8-piece swing band at our reception. To me, nothing will beat dancing cheek-to-cheek with my new husband to my Glenn Miller favorites. My grandma would be so proud. "Once again your face comes back to meJust like the theme of some forgotten melodyIn the album of my memorySerenade in blue"

REEVETOBE:   Now  that  you  are  no  longer  a  virgin,  metaphorically  speaking,  welcome  and  come  back  often.  This  is  like  swimming,  the  first  time  is  always  worse  in  your  imagination  than  it  is  once  you  take  the  plunge.  Now  let  me  introduce  myself,  my  name  is  Bert,  and  I  am  in  charge  of  shamelessness  and  incorrigibility.......

 
reevetobe,

Welcome. It sounds as if your grandparent's house was like ours where the radio went on before the lights.

I have a memory of listening to big band music in the lap of our Lutheran grandmother who observed:

"Music should make you feel good... but not too good."

Big Band music is the most optimistic music I've ever enjoyed.  It smiles, from beginning to end and even the seques to another song seem to smile.
Glen Miller was my Dad's favorite; I heard Glen Miller a lot while I was growing up. 
Particularly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJE-onnw2gM
And this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0m6i1HQxN8&feature=related
And:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2uoH6kcpMc&feature=related
 
 
Doesn't it make you smile?  Or want to dance?
 
This is great great stuff!

Dance?   Did  someone  say  DANCE???

How's your fox-trot bert?
 
 

Do Y'all remember Dancing ... back when there was Body Contact, Rhythmic motion to REAL Music, that wasn't so loud, that you couldn't hear it ???  Remember when Vocals were actually intelligible ??? Helen O'Connell singing, Fascination or Blue Champagne, or maybe even, Green Eyes ....... Moving about the floor with your Honey in your arms, heartbeats synchronized in a race, swaying thigh to thigh, the scent from her flushing throat calling your attention to that killer smile, and taste of the last kiss from those lips setting your memory and your loins on fire at the same time, one fueling the other ... Dancing .... when the night and the light are right, and the only intoxication you felt was the thought of her, meeting the reality of what you were feeling in your arms ....... So different from what is called "Dancing" today ... where one can be out on the Dancefloor alone, and no one would even notice .......

Park4: I am a sly & crafty fox when I trot, Park4. It's good exercise, it puts me on an even playing field with young whipper-snappers, and it makes people smile.

I used to dance with my son ,when he was a baby, to Peter, Paul and Mary .  I probably sang with them too.  I was terribly sad to read about Mary Travers death.... actually we danced to all kinds of music  and now he makes me mixes of music he know I will like and introduces me to bands and chamber music groups etc. 
 
I saw my first TV show at my grandpaarents house in 1954.  The show was Ed Sullivan and Elvis was on!!!  My grandparents and great aunt were absolutely shocked.  The TV was set in the fireplace.  I thought it was strange then and i still do.
 
As a piece of trivia my son was delivered by Dr. Glenn Miller.  Do you think his mom had a crush on the real one?

KIM:   The  city  elevator  inspector  for  my  office  building  is  John  Dillinger,  do  you  think  I  hired  him  as  part  of  my  fascination  with  criminal  mindsets?

hmmm,  possibly.
 
off to the neighborhood pot luck appetizer party.   Enjoy your evening everyone!

Welcome, revetobe. I'm not in charge of anything, so far, but welcome to the neighborhood. You'll like it. My grandparents and aunts had the radio on, as Stoney says, almost before the lights, so I grew up loving Glenn Miller too -- all the big bands.

IVAN, if I may, YES IN SPADES to all you say!!!! As each of us is allotted very few exclamation points in a lifetime, you've a sense of how strongly I agree with you. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wait jus a dern minit...those are not the real ones~ ~those are Exclamation pernts...just so's ya know

Road  Yacht:  See  how  crafty  Jalopkin  {Ivan}  is?   Not  playing  fair,  giving  his  steamy  images  of  REAL  dancing......Heck,  Georgia  is  already  packing  her  suitcase,  and  setting  her  car's  GPS  for  his  address......lol

As I said  before, a deep bow,a doff of the fedora with a sweeping motion,and ..."may I have this dance" usually works its charm,BUT, on the sepiatrain,in the clubcar,to the strains of the crank Victrola Glen Miller,you must also have sea legs...those knife edge pleats,and sharp cuffs,hide the dexterity of keeping that bow as the sepiatrain rounds a corner.....

Road  Yacht,  you  know  me  well  enough  to  remember  that  I  love  trains,  especially  live  steam  from  the 1940's.....new  enough  to  be  equipped  with  amenities,  old  enough  to  give  me   a  safe  harbor  or  comfort  zone  for  my  cuban   cigar,  vodka  martini  with  stuffed  olive,  double-breasted  suit  with  broad  lapels,  double  pleats  and  cuffs,  monogram  french  cuffed  shirt  and  dancing  shoes.   Now  I  need  companionship,  and  all  I  can  orchestrate  at  this  hour  is  a  pair  of  floppy-eared  dogs.....lol
Somebody  please  think  about  a  drawing  for  an  attendance  prize  for  tomorrow,  our  comments  are  great,  but  attendance  is  down....vaya  con  dios

A large banner,tied over the entrance,stitng in extra bold, baby hollywood script, : FREE DRINKS, ALL DAY,TOMORROW      that oughta do it,and, it'll work every day       <|:-)

Dancing?  I remember (in the Pittsburgh area) everyone was into Motown.  It was culture shock when I went back to Jersey for vacations and found everyone was into folk... and at night along the Pennsylvania Turnpike (up near the Breezewood exit) you could bring in weak signals of bluegrass from somewhere in West Virginia... even then I was caught between cultural icebergs, paddling my kayak from one to the other.  And the stars twinkled overhead in the dark, and the moon was full, and the dry snow drifted down, muffling humankind except for the scraping sound of snow shovels on concrete.... the music of the spheres... 

GEORGIA ... BERT ... Thank You for taking notice .......


BERT:  Hiring that Elevator Captain is what we call, KITSCH ....... A thing that helps preserve Memories of days gone by, when Products reflected Pride of Craftsmanship, and there really was such a thing as, "Durable Goods" ....... There was a kid I grew up with who cracked me up when we first met, and he told me his name was, Pete Maas ... of course, what I heard was, Peat Moss ....... we were good friends ever after, until he was skewered in a pit of Punji Sticks near a village called, Plei Mie ... Anyway, Kitsch is good for the Soul ...

dancing...we had dances in junior high.  I was/am very short and certainly not "cool"   I will always be greatfull for the tallest guy in class who would dance with me .... on his knees.
 
Do you remember the Duke of Earl....and the duchess too.

 
Bert & Critchfield,

Nothing is as simple as it seems:

"The culture minister "strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8277886.stm

It has been, since La Fayette, pretty much downhill for these guys.

KIM:  At that same time that you recall, in my life ... I was 6'2" tall and used to love the hell out of dancing with, Judy Farley ....... 4'4" tall and cute as a Bunny !!!  Most of the time, she would just take her shoes off and stand on my feet and we would whirl away and have a marvelous time ... One Saturday evening, dancing at the Community Centre, I asked her if she'd like to see the dancefloor as everybody else does, for a change ... she thought that a marvelous idea, but wondered how it could be ....... I got down on one knee and picked her up, pulled her close to me as she giggled histerically ... and it was three Songs before the Chaperones realized I was dancing with Judy, and that she was sitting on my arm(as I have done with all my kids years later) seconds later, the Eviction Committee came over, blustering, spewing and having apoplexy and threatened to call everyone from Parents to the Legion of Decency ....... I just carried her out the door and we went to a Drive-In Picture Show ... They prolly wouldn't have been so upset if she hadn't been wearing a skirt ....... Never occured to either one of us, I just thought she might like a change of scenery ... and besides, everybody could see both my hands ... If we hadn't been eye-level, they never woulda snapped ....... I even offered to dance with one of the Chaperones the same way, and show her exactly what we were doing, but she got wide-eyed for a second or two and had an attack of the vapors .......  Damn shame when two friends can't enjoy a dance together ... without the Biddies gettin' their asses over the dashboard .......

The Glen Miller Orchestra, as well as Cole Porter, Tony Bennet and the guys from the Rat Pack are re-discovered every few years by the trendy kids  who patronize the clubs.
Fine wine and great music improve with time.  And we all yearn for a return to elegance.  

Jalopkin!
 
You are a treasure, indeed...

Very Kind of you to say so, P4 ....... I just calls 'em as I sees 'em .......  It amazed me to think that these people didn't realize that   IF   there would have been something untoward going on, that I was stupid enough NOT to hide somewhere ??? That I would commit some offense in the middle of three hundred people, with the STOIC Grand Council watching every move ???  And there I was, at least a foot taller than everybody else in the room except the Basketball Team .......  Years later, Judy married my buddy George, who played for the Houston Oilers ... 6'6" tall and 325 pounds in his birthday suit ....... Judy was 4'4" and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet ... As George was telling me how grand the Honeymoon was, I asked him how in the hell they could have sex without him crushing that little Girl ....... He said that he just sat on the edge of the bed and set her down on top of him, and sorta moved her up and down ... I asked if it was OK like that ??? Geroge said it was kinda like masturbating, but you got somebody to talk to .......

Oh Ivan!!
 
You're terrible -- but still a treasure!