MEANDERING THROUGH MUSIC MEMORIES – Part I

INTRO AND EARLY YEARS

Until this last year when we were sidetracked by the pandemic, I was an ardent concert and festival goer, and although I have gone to thousands of concerts, only a few really stand out.  To meander through the back catalogue of your memory is to face some surprising gaps.  Why is memory so random and what makes an event memorable?  Why are the attending circumstances surrounding an event, not always the event itself, remembered so clearly? These memories are like a faint twitch of the curtain, or like an ineffable but alluring scent you smell as you pass through a crowd.

Perhaps it is because there is so much unmemorable or inappropriate music in our everyday life from TV advertising (I recently heard Piaf’s “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” in an ad for Allstate), to gyms to spas to retail stores, that it all becomes a blur and the experience is debased. Better to listen to music without undue distractions or make do with blessed silence.  You can not get a massage in the United States or enter a shop in Santa Fe without having to listen to the flute music of Robert Nakai or other mood-inducing music.  Not that there is anything inherently wrong with Nakai’s flute, it is just that it is ubiquitous, and has the calculated intent of putting all those massage-recipients and shoppers in a quasi-mystical frame of mind. You must listen to similarly calm-inspiring music interspersed with sounds of a babbling brook when you attend a “mindfulness” class — although my strong preference is not to be distracted when visualizing World Peace.  Consider the music you hear in senior exercise classes — Billy Joel, “Remember My Name” from Fame, or Motown if you’re lucky. The same old stuff over and over.  Why not Radiohead instead?  Massive Attack?  Burna Boy?  

As our various lockdowns came and went, I listened to music more and more.  For someone who still has a 45 collection, not to mention shelves of LPs, and cupboards of CDs, I have taken to Amazon Music with a vengeance because it is so accessible and comprehensive.  You can’t find everything you want, but the selection is very good, and I’ve discovered many contemporary musicians previously unknown to me and not included in my out-of-date CD collection.   Currently, my dirty little secret is my love of Ed Sheeran’s music.  I know, I know, his lyrics are sometimes saccharine and puerile — they are positively Shakespearean when compared to, say, the Bee Gees — but are so supple and reminiscent of late teenage/early twenties angst, alienation, and outsider status, it really takes me back.  He is a musical chameleon and poignant storyteller, incorporating catchy melodies and different styles — hip hop, R & B, Irish, soul — a distillation of all that makes pop music appealing.   I have a penchant for the full-blown lyrical dramas of Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi as well, with his more straightforward kind of late teen anguish and rougher, more fervent voice.  And I love that they have such distinctly un-pop-star-like looks.  Adele, albeit more glamorous, is in the same category with her powerful lyrics of relationship dramas and churchy, anthemic chord changes.   I’ve also taken to listening to sad Irish music.  One of the saddest and most beautiful pieces is Patrick Cassidy’s “Lament,” a song written to memorialize the Irish famine, “Sails of Galway,” and “The Wind That Shakes the Barley.”

I seem to be digressing into the weeds, so back to the topic at hand which is recollected musical events, be it the actual music memory or memory of the attending events.  This piece has turned into my small musical time capsule of changing styles and interests.  Here are, in approximate chronological order, some memorable and pleasurable musical moments from a lifetime of concert attendance.  I still have a few festivals left in me, however.  Whenever we emerge from this virus nightmare, I plan to go to Glastonbury and see what that is all about.  

MY PARENTS

My mother was a dragon of propriety and convention when it suited her, a keen devotee of Emily Post and victim of a strict and pernicious Methodist upbringing.  She kept me on a very short leash through high school. As a result, my music exposure was limited to well chaperoned events which prevented me from hearing much in the way of live popular music. This restrictive modus operandi, of course, led to the inevitable small, early rebellions beginning in the second grade when I ran away from Sunday School, to my forbidden excursion to see Marilyn Monroe (too sexy!) in Niagara which was playing on the Champs Elysees, to reading proscribed books under the covers in bed with a flashlight after a much too early lights out rule, to buying the forbidden Ricky Nelson 1957 hit, “A Teenager’s Romance,” and many other transgressions which took place over the years. It was a different age, and my parents were certainly not in the vanguard as far as child psychology went — not even in the rearguard.

Although I took piano lessons for six years as a child, I have no memory of any live concerts, classical or otherwise, until I lived in Washington, D.C., as a young teenager.  My parents took me to hear Harry Belafonte a couple of times, a performer with a big onstage presence. The music was new and exotic, imparting a sense of a very different kind of life. On my 16th birthday, my parents took me and a friend to a nightclub to hear Bobby Darrin, a big heartthrob at the time.  Since we were right by the stage, I was cruelly disappointed to see that he was wearing significant lifts in his shoes, and that he was actually quite short even with lifts.  He was decorously flirtatious, however, and we loyally sat through two sets of “Splish Splash,” “Dream Lover,” “Mack the Knife,” and “Beyond the Sea.”  The video below is from the Dick Clark Show which ran simultaneously with the wildly popular and influential TV show, American Bandstand, both hosted by Dick Clark. 

A year or so later, a date took me to a club in DC called The Showboat to hear jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd.  The place was intriguingly bohemian;  people snapped their fingers instead of applauding.  Byrd would stop playing if someone had the temerity to talk, an exercise in control I never saw duplicated until my first Taj Mahal show. Turtlenecks, beards, wine, cigarettes, jazz — this was life!  It also sparked a decades-long interest in jazz, particularly in emerging ‘90s musicians like trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Roy Hargrove, saxophonists Antonio Hart and Joshua Redman, and bassist Christian McBride.

PARIS IN MY YOUTH

My first big pop concert was in Paris —  Petula Clark in the Place de la Concorde.  Her hit “Downtown” was all the rage so it must have been around 1964, the summer before my junior year at the Sorbonne.  The area was jammed with thousands of people, and there was a near riot.  The crush of people was so intense you could not move forward or backward.  It was thrilling to be in such a huge crowd, thrilling to hear her sing, and only incidentally somewhat dangerous.  When you watch this video, you will be reminded of the huge stylistic differences in pop music some 57 years later.

L’Abbaye was a club in Paris on Rue de l’Abbaye in the Latin Quarter, owned by the American expats and musicians Gordon Heath and Lee Payant.  They were a mixed-race, gay couple, and they performed every night — gospel, folk, blues, jazz.  In the early ‘50s my parents went there frequently; I did the same in the ‘60s.  They were there for 27 years, from 1949 until 1976, performing every night until Payant died.  The two had an enormous repertoire and devoted following, but I specifically remember Heath singing Abel Meeropol’s chilling “Strange Fruit,” sung by many including Billie Holiday.   The club was small, candles were on all the tables, and people snapped their fingers to applaud.

When I studied at the Sorbonne my junior year of college and later worked at The Reader’s Digest in Paris, I made it my mission to explore as many jazz clubs, restaurants, and bars with literary or artistic connections as I could.  I became a habitue of certain cafes and restaurants — Chez Rosalie where Modigliani used to eat, Buttercup’s Chicken Shack in Montparnasse (owned by Bud Powell’s wife, Buttercup), and La Coupole — and bought the cheapest thing on the menu because I was always broke.  

I hung out at the famous literary cafes as far as my paltry budget would allow — Les Deux Magots, Cafe de Flore, Brasserie Lipp, and Cafe Procope (frequented by Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac, Verlaine, Hugo, Robespierre, Danton, Marat, Napoleon, and other luminaries, it is the oldest cafe in Paris, but very touristy for a long time now) — nursing my cup of espresso for hours and hoping for a Sartre or de Beauvoir appearance. (I did see Sartre once in the metro.) In contrast, the Sorbonne was surrounded by cheap, student cafes where you could sit and study indefinitely as long as you would occasionally buy an espresso; the famous cafes were much pricier.

I frequented jazz clubs like the Blue Note, the Riverboat, La Contrescarpe, Trois Mailletz, Le Tabou, Le Chat Qui Pêche, and Le Caveau de la Huchette, the latter two both on rue de la Huchette. Most of the leading American jazz musicians of the time played at these clubs — Chet Baker, Bud Powell, Ted Curson, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin, and others.  At both Le Chat Qui Pêche and Le Caveau de la Huchette, you found yourself in a dimly lit basement cave at the bottom of a flight of stairs.  I don’t remember paying a cover charge then, and I almost never paid for a drink. There were so many people squashed together on benches and in chairs, dancing, or standing in the near-dark that the waiters couldn’t get to everyone.  You’d have to wave your arms and make yourself noticed to ever get their attention.  The video below is Ted Curson on flugelhorn in ‘73 at an unidentified French “cabaret.”

The next video is Johnny Griffin on tenor sax and Art Taylor on drums in Paris in ‘71.  Although a little later in time, both of these videos will give you an idea of the atmosphere in these clubs as I remember them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1_ieWZUOqQ

MY BROTHER

My youngest brother and I had an unforgettable experience in Vienna in 1969.  We were both staying in Budapest, but heard that Jimi Hendrix and his band were going to play in Vienna at the Wiener Konzerthaus (1-22-69), usually a venue for classical music performances.  We drove to Vienna, and as we pulled up to the Four Seasons (my parents paid), the Hendrix entourage arrived in a flourish of tie dye, feathers, scarves, leather, embroidered vests, silk shirts, hats, beads — the full monty.  To top it off, we went up in the same elevator, trying desperately to pretend we weren’t in awe.  That night at the concert, I remember sitting in faux Louis XV chairs which had been placed in the middle section and towards the front, which seemed so incongruous for a rock concert. Two years earlier Hendrix had smashed a guitar on stage, and at a later performance set his guitar on fire.  We were hoping that something equally dramatic would occur at this concert, but it did not; it was a great rock experience, nonetheless.  The sound quality from the Vienna concerts is bad on the youtube videos; this video is only a year later, in Hawaii, and has a better sound.

WEST VIRGINIA AND CALIFORNIA

While we were married, we visited my then husband’s family and friends in Tornado, West Virginia  (halfway between Scary Mountain and Hurricane) in the summer of 1969. We went to a friend’s house who was eager to have us listen to a song on a new album he had just purchased.  It was Les McCann’s and Eddie Harris’s song “Compared to What” from their Swiss Movement album.  I remember sitting on a brown couch in a fairly drab living room listening to this riveting song — the lyrics, the power, and the rhythm were remarkable.

That same trip, we spent a lovely evening outside on the knoll by his parents’ house.  One of his step-brothers was a two or three-time winner of the West Virginia State Fiddling Championship, his step-father played the fiddle well, a couple of other folks pulled out their instruments, and we had an impromptu concert on top of the knoll.  We sat there in the summer evening, listened to fiddle music, and watched the fireflies.

Janis Joplin, in San Bernardino, California, was two and a half hours late.  The women’s bathroom had a couple of female cops carefully checking everyone for pot (still illegal then). Joplin did come out eventually, clutching a bottle, and managed to put on a great show.  She was a unique and tragic performer, and I still feel a chill when I hear her voice on some songs.  This video is from a 1969 performance in Frankfurt, so close enough time-wise. 

Later, when we lived in the Bay Area, we would go to Golden Gate Park for afternoon concerts.  I can’t remember any particular groups but I remember the mood, typical of the early ‘70s, when love and peace were in abundance, and people watching was unparalleled.

THE ROLLING STONES

In October of 1981, some friends from work and I made our way down to the Kingdome to hear the Stones.  The huge space was packed, and we were far to the rear.  There was a large screen which we watched since we could barely see what was happening on the stage, although it was loud enough. I tried moving up but had yet to perfect my technique for squirming forward in a crowd.  The energy, both on stage, and in the crowd, was palpable, as you can hear and see in the video of that concert.

Continue to Meandering Through Music Memories – Part Two

Post main featured image: Visions of Domino, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons