Our friends Rick and Judy are living one of my bucket list
items that I will never do now. But if you are at all interested in an
African experience, I encourage you to read
her wonderful blog entry about their safari adventures. Definitely
worth your time (also check out her other entries about this trip they are
on. She's not only a wonderful writer, but a great photographer as
well.)
And speaking of great photographs, I encourage you to check
out
my review of the show I reviewed on Sunday, Bars and Measures at
the B Street Theater in Sacramento. The review is nothing to brag
about, but the dramatic publicity photo is one of the best I've received to
accompany a review and such a shame that the Enterprise can't print
these photos in color!
The show focuses on the relationship between two brothers,
one passionate about jazz and the other a classically trained pianist.
One in prison, one trying to free him. One Muslim, one Christian.
Lots of layers to this show, but I thought often, especially as Bilal, the
jazz guy, was scatting with brother Eric and talking about his jazz passions
how much my father would have enjoyed the play, at least the music part of
it.
My father had many passions and he was so passionate about
things that he wanted to share them all with you. But, as my mother
was fond of saying, he felt that if a little of something was good, a lot of
it was better. It was the thing that prevented him from being a great
cook...very heavy handed on the seasonings. If a tsp of chili was
good, a tablespoon would be better.
With music, he was so filled with jazz that he wanted to
share it with Karen and me--and anybody else who would listen. He inundated
us with instructions we couldn't understand about piano chords that he
particularly loved and how to make them. He would show me a major
cord, a minor chord and to this day I don't know what an augmented chord is,
but he would practically swoon, trying to get me to learn it. He'd
play jazz records he particularly liked, but never talked about why.
Just expected us to love them the way he did.
I often think about how he could have shared his love of
jazz with me in a way that I developed an appreciation for it.
Instead, today I not only understand nothing about jazz, but I have
an almost irrational revulsion of anything having to do with jazz.
(However, I must have learned something from him because I seem to be
the only critic who has mentioned the brothers in the show doing scat
duets.)
Music was just one of many things that we could not share,
though we each loved our own kind of music. When rock'n'roll came
along, he went on long diatribes about how it was the worst music ever
written (second only to Gilbert and Sullivan, which he loathed) and how it
would die a quick death. He was so adamant about how terrible
rock'n'roll was that to keep peace, I never became a fan of rock either,
until Lawsuit came along many years later (how he proud he would have been
of the kids if he had ever seen them perform, but he died before the band
really got going).
When we went to a production of Hair the other night,
we walked into the theater and rock music was playing over the loudspeaker
to set the mood. My fellow critic turned to me and laughed "Did you
ever think that you would be in a place like this and hear the Jefferson
Airplane playing [name of music]?" I didn't tell him that not only had
I never heard of the music he mentioned, but I only knew the name
"Jefferson Airplane" but couldn't pick them out of a crowd of famous bands
to save my soul.
Occasionally some rock star will show up on the Today
Show, one of those stars with gender neutral names like Stevie Nicks, a
name I've heard for many years. I still remember being amazed a few
years ago at finding out she was a girl. I couldn't tell you any song that
she is famous for (though if I heard one, I might recognize it), so I always
assumed that with a name like Stevie it was a man.
(But I can sing along with almost every popular John Denver
song and join with my mother in singing all those Perry Como and Bing Crosby
favorites on the playlist I made for her!)
The only reason I can sometimes identify the Talking Heads
by sound is because of how important they were to Paul and Ned and because
David Byrne has a very distinctive voice.
I don't listen to much music any more since I discovered
audio books Somehow, though I have an iPod filled with music, I have
lost the desire to listen to it, most of the time. Maybe too many sad
memories that go along with the most special recordings. Or maybe too
many good books I am hungry to finish.
But---there is good news today! I called my mother to
remind her to take her meds. She answered the phone (yay!), sounded
bright and chipper (yay!), and when she went to see if she had taken her
pills or not she had! We take these small triumphs where
we can!
AND, I'm lovin' my new refrigerator.
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