Hanging in NOLA – Travel Log – Part Deux

There’s never a shortage of live music in New Orleans, however, finding the kind of live music or the artist that inspires you is not always easy. Thankfully, Mrs. S’s forte is figuring out what’s going on, finding what we are interested in, and then telling me so we can work on the logistics together. One of our favorite places to go is Snug Harbor, but the lineup for the three night we were there was not that attractive. Making things more difficult was the fact that we had reservations at three swanky places over the three nights, so logistics was going to be more of a challenge in any event. But Mrs. S found that Jason and Ellis Marsalis were performing at Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse, just a stone’s throw from our hotel, and starting at 8PM on a night when we had a 5:30 dinner reservation just ten minutes or so down the road. She even put our name on the guest list and told them to keep something down front available for us.

Piano mediocrity meets piano greatness (again): Me and Ellis Marsalis

After a fantastic dinner at August, we made our way to the club, where to our dismay and trepidation, they were turning people away at the door. No worries. As two couples did their about face, I told the woman at the door that we were on the list, gave her our name, and she smiled brightly and said, “Right this way.” She showed us a cushy table with padded seats and generous area, but right in front of that was a tiny table barely large enough for two drinks and two chairs on either side. I asked if we could sit there and she said sure. And there we were again, in the best seats in the house: front row.

The view from behind our table: That's our table right in front of the piano there.

Turns out our table was also right next to the Messrs. Marsalis’ table, so I went ahead and shook the elder Marsalis’ hand and had our picture taken prior to the show. The show was a captivating program of Christmas music, with Jason on vibes and his father playing piano (obviously), though Jason of course got behind his trap set for their rousing version of Little Drummer Boy. I don’t know if it was part of the act or what, but every tune, Jason announced as if nobody in the place had heard Christmas music before. It was really kind of laughable to hear somebody , in a deadpan serious voice, go, “That was a tune called ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’. Now, here’s ‘Away in a Manger’.” Thanks, Jason. What was amazing was Jason would grab their CD, look at the back, call out a tune and a key signature, and Ellis would kick it off and away they went. Again, not sure it was part of the act, or what. The show was somewhat disrupted by a table of four in the front on the other side of the stage, who were yelling, laughing, and carrying on, and who had no idea who the Marsalis’s were. I wanted to tell them to shut up, but I figured if Jason wasn't bothered by them, neither would I be.

Drummer vibraphonist meets pianist vibraphonist (someday): Jason Marsalis and me.

The night ended paying $20 for a $10 CD so we could get it signed and have some more photos taken with the Marsalises, so it ended up being a night worth remembering in a lot of different ways. Hopefully Mrs. S can keep her concert going radar up and running during future trips to the Big Easy.

Stories from New Orleans – Parts 1 and 4: Making Friends

The drive from Madison Alabama to New Orleans Louisiana takes anywhere from six to eight hours, depending on how many stops and how long they are. Although the trip is almost 100% highway, portions of it are on decidedly neglected highways. In addition to beat up, old, poorly maintained roads where you take your life in your hands if you go over 60 miles per hour, the state of Mississippi pretty much figures you’re a hillbilly and will pee in the woods anyway, so there are not many rest stops once you enter the state and until you leave the state. That is to say, if you travel to New Orleans from Madison, you will almost certainly end up stopping at the first rest stop in Louisiana, which is the very comfy, cozy, coffee serving New Orleans Welcome Center on I-10.

After Mrs S and I had taken care of business, she started thumbing through the racks of brochures, which, again, is a given. We've done it on every previous trip to New Orleans. I was wandering around, seeing what would catch my eye and I heard one of the greeters say, “Can I help you find something?” I was about 20 feet from the desk, so I didn't think she was talking to me. Then I heard, “Would you sign our guest book?” So, I looked over and sure enough, she was talking to me and the other greeter was watching. “Um, no, and yes,” I said, counting the answers to two questions on my fingers. As I signed the book, the greeter and I were chatting and I happened to mention we were staying at The Monteleone. “Oh, my son is manager of the Carousel Bar there.” I said I’d be happy to say hello to him, as I knew I was going to be spending some time in the bar, and she said, his name is Michael D__. (You can probably Google his name, but I’ll redact it here for privacy.) I repeated his name and she said, “Oh you’re pronunciation is perfect.” (It’s not a hard name, but lazy, non-French people would tend to pronounce this French family name differently.)

Me and one of my drinks. The photo bomber is the bar manager, Michael (keep reading).

On the last day of the trip, following dinner in the hotel, we finally made our way to the bar. I was looking forward to meeting Michael and using the two free drink coupons I got when we checked into the hotel and I told them I was celebrating my birthday with them. Of course, on Christmas Eve, the Carousel Bar was packed and people were jumping on seats as soon as anybody stood up, so Mrs. S and I found two seats in the equally packed lounge adjacent.

Our waitress came over and when she brought our two free drinks, I asked if I Michael was working that night. She said, oh yes, and I said, well, I’m sure he’s quite busy and he doesn't know me, but if he could spare a moment, I’d like to talk to him for a minute. And she said, no problem, and he did come over and I did talk to him. Very nice guy. I told him the story about promising his mom to say hello. We talked about his mom and about the action in the bar, and how many times I’d been to New Orleans, and then I apologized and told him thanks for talking with me and allowing me to make good on my promise to his mom to say hello to him. He said it was his pleasure. So I sit back down and order another drink, and our waitress informs me it’s on the house and so is Mrs. S’s next one. I said, wow, great, and what’s your name and she says, “Tuna.” I look at her and raise an eyebrow, “Tuna?” She smiles and says, yes, just like the fish. Okay, well then let me get a picture with you. And we did.

Me and Tuna.

As it was getting close to midnight, Santa Claus showed up. I’m not sure if it was before his rounds or after his rounds, but I hadn't been all that naughty this year, so he let me take a picture with him. I should have bought him a drink. When we went to sit back down, Tuna was serving guests across from our seats, putting her right between me and Mrs. S. I told Mrs. S to wait a minute or we’d trap our waitress, and then Tuna says, “You’re making a Tuna sandwich!” Funny.

I drew the line on lap sitting, but I was okay with having a picture with Santa, even though it was the first time in years.

And I’m not sure why I didn't take a commemorative photo with Michael, but he photo bombed one of Mrs. S’s other photos anyway, so it all worked out. That’s not all the friends I made while in New Orleans, but those are the ones I made at the start and the finish of the trip.

Don’t worry, there’s more stories (and surprise friends) to come.

What I learned by watching the exact same Tony Bennett concert twice in two nights (Part 2)

If you missed part 1, here it is

Some other things I learned, kind of:

4) If you can sing a song in a four story performance hall that seats 1856 people, without a microphone and still fill the place with sound at the age of 88, you must be Tony Bennett

"Fly Me To The Moon", with guitar, without microphone. Unbelievable.

I don’t think anybody else 88 years or older anywhere can do that. It’s like a Guinness Book level feat, if you think about it.

5) The best seat in the house is the front row

This will be my space for the next two hours, thank you very much. Also, note the person with the black hair and white shirt at the very upper left. That was Mrs. S's seat on Friday night.

You can stretch out your legs (and arms, and hips, and anything else you want). You can walk right up to the stage and lean out over it and pretend you fell off the stage and are trying to climb back on. You can talk to the cello and violin players. You can hear the best. You can see the best. People think you’re important. People know you’re a patron. The ushers remember you and don’t bother you about anything. Pure and simple: If you are not in the front row, you might have good seats, but you don’t have the best seats. Period.

No, really, I'm with the band!

This is the view from our box on Friday night. Same price as front row, waaaayyyy different view.

6) The technology cannot be stopped and everyone has it in their pockets. Soon, there will be no attempt at preventing people from photographing at concerts.

View from front row on Thursday night. Yep, that's better

Note to performers everywhere, I have a high resolution camera, video recorder, and sound recorder. It’s right here, in my pocket. If you tell me I can’t take your picture, I won’t. I actually believe in the rules that keep our society livable. If you tell me I can take photos without flash, then don’t tell me I can only take photos when the house lights are up. And if you aren’t going to stop the people in the third balcony above the stage (who are actually using flash), then guess what? You’re screwed and I’m probably going to take your picture from the front row, regardless of announcements, warnings printed on tickets, or anything else. And anyway, Mrs. S is the concert photographer. I’m going to just sit here and enjoy the show. It’s her you have to worry about. (What I mean is, pretty soon, the entire planet is going to be continually photographed, for any or no reason. Performers need to embrace the technology and let their fans take photos. That’s it.)

What I learned by watching the exact same Tony Bennett concert twice in two nights (Part 1)

It’s not much, but, here goes.

1) The program in the program may or may not be the actual program

My personal concert program always includes a cocktail and wine prior to the show.

The program for the Tony Bennett concert included four pieces by the Nashville Symphony, and those were correct. For Tony’s portion, it said “Selections will be called from the stage”, which is standard jazz lingo for, “We’ll tell you what we’ll play, just as soon as we decide.” The program also listed “Featuring special guest Antonia Bennett”, who is Tony’s up-and-coming daughter. When she wasn’t there on Thursday night, I was sure she’d be there Friday. But no. Friday’s show was the exact same as Thursday’s, mistakes and all. We thought about going to the box office, telling them we came to see Antonia, not Tony, and we want our money back. Then we decided we didn’t want anyone to laugh at us that much, and even more, we didn’t want anybody to think we like Antonia Bennett better than her dad.

2) If you don’t practice out the mistakes, the mistakes don’t go away

The man himself. If you think the crowd didn't go absolutely bananas when this octogenarian strode purposefully to center stage,  you obviously don't appreciate what it means to be in the same room with a living legend. And note the big video screen prompter tilted on the front speaker. That's the one he didn't pay any attention to.

First of all, I’m not bemoaning the fact that an 88-year old guy forgot a few words of a few lines of songs he doesn’t sing all that much. And to be fair, lots of singers much younger use prompts and earphones and whatnot to help their singing and lyrical comprehension. And let’s also be clear: Tony doesn’t need any help with the songs he’s been singing for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. He’s got those. But on Thursday night, when he sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with “..friends who are near to us, will be dear to us, once more”, you could see him looking at the prompter, trying to squint it out above the spotlight, and then look around to see if the audience caught the problem, and then (no doubt), he thought, (correctly) “they didn’t notice, and if they did, they didn’t care”. But when he made the exact same mistake on Friday, well folks, I’m sorry to call BS on a legend, but that’s just sloppy. 

3) It must be EXTREMELY hard to play the same exact set, night after night

One line that Tony Bennett can never use: "Stop me if you've heard this one before." He sings any song that made him a bajillion dollars at some point in his career, and that's like a bajillion songs.

And by extremely hard, I mean extremely easy, and by extremely easy I mean, it’s easy to hit the notes and cues and hard to make it sound interesting. If you’ve never heard it before (Thursday night), everything is fresh and lively. If you’ve heard it before (Friday night), it starts to sound flat and finished, almost artificial. It’s like the second time you watch a movie you liked and you notice the shadow of a boom mike on one of the characters in the background. From that day forward, every time you watch that movie, you’ll be waiting for the shadow of the microphone. (It also kind of explains why they didn’t practice “Have ... Christmas”, because, who wants to play from the set list when they’re practicing?)

"You're beautiful!"

There are a couple other things I learned, and some better photos coming in part 2.

How to swing Christmas

Add one freaking awesome singing group, one pair of front row tickets, and a two hour drive through a rainstorm (which was bad, but not quite the tornado level storm we drove through to see WyntonMarsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra). Then sit back and enjoy the show.

The somewhat dated (I thought) Manhattan Grinches on screen behind stage.

Manhattan Transfer has been doing this kind of show for years, but this is the first time I had the opportunity to see and hear it for myself. Despite the recent death of the group’s leader, they had a phenomenal back up who they've been singing with for years in different iterations of this group, and the harmonies were as tight as ever and the one hour forty five minute show just flew by. They sang all the Christmas standards you could want, from Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song” to “Frosty the Snowman”. Plus they sang a bunch of their hits and a few New York themed Christmas things (which admittedly, fell dead on the Nashville crowd for the most part).

The set. They didn't even have a band, just what I would call a rhythm section. They were amazing.

Their musical director, Yaron Gershovsky, was pretty much the highlight of the show for me. Playing on a Steinway grand (a smallish one) and an occasional riff on a Korg, Kronos synth, he drove the rhythm section and could pretty much play any style and stylistic solo he had to.

No, we did not take surreptitious pictures during the show. But this is pretty much exactly what they looked like, except Janis was wearing her contacts.

I guess after all is said and done, Janis Siegel is still my favorite. Her solo bits were edgier and more complete than her band mates’, and she at least put on makeup and had her hair done before the show. (Cheryl Bentyne looked like somebody woke her up from a nap just in time for the show.) Anyway, it was a good time, and definitely worth the drive through the pouring rain to hear this legendary group while they are still together and performing.

This was Janis at the Blue Note, again highlighting a Christmas show, when we were in New York three years ago.

Next up is Tony Bennett, which Mrs S this morning informed me will be a two hour (or so) show with an intermission and Tony only singing during the second half of the show. She thought I would be disappointed, but it is pretty much what I expected. The guy’s 88, so if he gives us a good half hour and four or five of his hits, that will work for me.

As close to being on stage at the Schermerhorn as I am likely to get.

Damn, I just realized: I could have put something in the seats next to mine and played some kind of joke on whoever sits there Thursday night. Maybe. Oh well. Better to be inconspicuous down front anyway.

November’s over. Here comes my month!

Although I am not particularly looking forward to turning 51 in a couple of weeks (something about being exactly a half century old that I like), I have a lot to look forward to this month. Thanks to a quirk in the calendar, not only do I have five piano lessons this month, I get paid three times, too. As the year is winding down, I’m taking off more time to use up vacation, and of course, working in automotive means year end shutdown from December 23 through January 4. (January 5 will suck, but that's next month.) That’s not all though.

What I’ll be doing with some of those days off is spending a lot of time in Nashville, starting Friday December 5 to see Manhattan Transfer. The founder of the group may have passed away, but the show must go on. I’m looking forward to seeing this renowned group for the first time. Less than a week after that will be Tony Bennett, and we are going to catch both his shows. For the second show on December 12, we’ll be up in a loge box (right above the stage) for the first time. That will be a good experience because by comparing the two shows, I’ll get to learn a little about performance nuances from one of the greatest performers of our time.

That's front row center, front row center, stage side loge front row. It pays to be a patron of the arts!

October was a nasty month, but November was better. Now comes the best month of the year. I’m so damn happy I might even put up some Christmas lights, just for the heck of it. We can certainly decorate the inside of the house because then, I can listen to my big band Christmas CD’s while doing it.

Haul out the holly, it’s going to be a jazzy December (as always).

As the Crow flies through jazz: a review of a great book about a jazz life

It's hard to find good books about jazz. This isn't because people who write about jazz are not decent writers, it's because there just aren't a lot of books about jazz is all. One that I came across thanks to Mrs. S recommending it on the strength of her favorite author, Haruki Murakami, writing about it, was From Birdland to Broadway by Bill Crow. It's an unexpected joy. Here's what I wrote about it in my review of the book on Amazon:

A glimpse at the time when jazz came of age 

 Bill Crow is one of those rare musicians who spent the better part of forty years skating through the background of the jazz music industry. A workman like musician who played everything from a Jew’s harp to a valve trombone to a double bass to a Fender bass to a tuba, he also played with luminaries ranging from Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk to Marian McPartland, Zoot Sims, Benny Goodman, Terry Gibbs and a small army of other famous jazz musicians. He approached his music the way he approached life: with his eyes open for opportunity, excitement, and the thrill of something new at any chance he could get. And the best part of it is, he took notes so that he could write up some of the stories and produce a wonderful book like this. 

 I’d never heard of Bill Crow until my wife told me about him after she read a Haruki Murakami book that mentioned Bill Crow’s book. I love reading about jazz and although I’d never heard of Bill Crow, Murakami’s mention is a helluva recommendation. So, I bought this book. Crow’s writing is straightforward and conversational. He doesn't have to set up the scenes other than to explain what he observed, what happened and what he thought, because the characters and situations he writes about are all actual people and highly entertaining situations. (They were, after all, working in the entertainment industry.) Crow’s sense of humor is also impeccable and if you know anything about jazz musicians from the 1940’s to 1980’s, you know that there were more than a few unique characters with more than a few unique outlooks on music in particular and life in general. And to his credit, Crow does not flinch away from some of the seedier and less mass-appealing aspects of the jazz business (like manipulative club owners and rampant drug abuse), but he keeps everything in context so that the reader can really see and feel what making jazz was like once upon a time. 

 I learned a lot reading this book, including that my CD collection includes quite a few works that Mr. Crow played on. (Maybe it’s time I read all my CD liner notes and lineups again.) More to the point, I really enjoyed this book and often would lose track of time as I moved from one story to another. This book was light but informative reading, entertaining, and illuminating. It didn't romanticize those years that are gone and will never come again, but Crow puts enough in this book to allow the reader to romanticize if they want. It’s a great book that is well worth five stars.

Mr. Crow has one or two other books out, so I'll probably pick them up one of these days and read those, too. One thing's for sure, this book makes me want to read more books about jazz, and so, I'm going to do that.