London Life #3

Look Gromit, it's Wensleydale cheese!

OK, I didn't actually buy this one. It's got apricots. But I enjoyed the fact that I could have bought it. I'll have to pick up some other variety of Wensleydale soon.

Anyhow, this week began with a tour of Parliament. Tours are possible on most Saturdays, so we bought tickets and waited in the security line. It was like getting on a plane, going through metal detectors and all that. The tour starts in the historic Westminster Hall, built at the end of the 11th century. It is a ridiculously large space, and one of the few portions that still remain from the original construction.

The tour continues into St. Stephens Hall, which is incredibly beautiful. Sculptures and paintings are all around.

One of the nice guards came over to give us a little history. He pointed out a specific the paintings and asked Max to count up the legs of the dogs in the corner. It turns out there are two heads but only five legs visible. He suggested that doing the construction and painting the art must have taken many years to finish, and quite often artists would die before they were complete.

It was kinda wild being in the actual House of Lords (the red room) and House of Commons (the green room -- y'know, the one where you see all the members of Parliament shouting questions at the prime minister).

We spent some time taking a nice long walk along the Thames. We started at the London Eye, crossed at the Westminster Bridge, then took in some of the sculpture and monuments along the way, finishing our walk at the Millennium Bridge.

 

 

 

 

After such a long walk, we had worked up an appetite, so we headed over to a restaurant Nick Weiser had suggested called Punjab for some Indian food. It turns out it's the oldest Northern Indian restaurant in the U.K. We really enjoyed it; Max always loves bread and rice.

 

On Tuesday, we headed back to the Science Museum. Max wanted to get the Fly 360° experience. I declined, as I knew it would make me completely nauseated, but Max and Catherine gave it a shot.

 

Afterwards we walked over to the ICLC to meet the rest of the faculty and have a little reception. Max is always up for a reception. As always, he always enjoys bread and cheese. What a good bunch of people!

On Wednesday afternoon, I started teaching my London Center course: Exploring Cultural Diversity in the London Music Scene. What a title, eh? The class is going to get out into London and check out the scene. Very exciting, I hope!

Catherine and Max joined me on the tube ride over to the LC, but it turned out this was to be the first time the tube was unreliable for us. After we changed trains to the Victoria line, the conductor announced there were signal problems ahead and we had to wait. The wait turned out to be very long, so after a while we decided to improvise. It's funny -- even though I'm a jazz musician who takes pride in my ability to improvise, all I could think about at that moment was one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite movies. It's from Apollo 13, where Ed Harris instructs his flight controllers "I want you all to forget the flight plan. From this moment on, we are improvising..."

We left the station, checked Google Maps and hopped on a bus. It was actually Max's first double decker bus ride, so of course we rode up top. Eventually, we found our way to the LC, and Catherine and Max headed off to the Natural History museum. I was only 5 minutes late for class. Postscript: Heading back home after class, the Victoria line was STILL down. Glad we didn't stay on the train.

Thursday Max and I battled with Nerf guns for a few hours at the nearby park. A four-year old named Murray approached Max on his bike, and stopped to watch the action while munching on an apple. I think the orange and blue plastic of the Nerf is just too attractive for a kid to ignore, so after a few minutes he and Max started playing together and his mum walked over and struck up a conversation. She tentatively asked about the "big changes" going on in the U.S. She wasn't sure if/how to broach the topic, but I could tell she was genuinely interested in my point of view as an American. It wound up being a very interesting chat about a whole range of topics -- Brexit, the National Health Service, middle age employment prospects, and the current state of the government in her native Poland.

Friday we had a long outing, in the afternoon buying tickets for the evening show of Half a Sixpence at TKTS.  We had the whole day, so we took a bus to the Tower of London. The bus ride itself was quite exciting. We grabbed the front row of seats in the upper deck, which provides a wonderful vantage point to watch the city go by.

The Tower is of course an amazing piece of history. We got there too late to stay for a long time, so we're surely going to need to go back. Max liked this armor intended for someone just his size.

Of course, there's plenty of really creepy stuff to be seen there, too. We just scratched the surface.

We headed back towards Leicester Square and walked over to Chinatown for dinner. Before we got food, we enjoyed checking out the decorations there. Since the Chinese New Year is coming up, it was a very festive atmosphere.

This one confused me.  I actually exclaimed "Hey, look at that sculpture!" before Catherine pointed out that it was actually a living statue. Man, they totally got me!

After Chinese food, we went over to Noel Coward theater, where Half a Sixpence was playing. Wow, it was really fun. The lead, Charlie Stemp, was amazing. He could do it all -- singing, dancing, acting -- a top notch performer. Max had a total blast. He was was into it all the way to the end. It was quite an impressive production. The orchestra sounded great, too.

That's all for now. Back in a week!

-Mike

London Life #2

I wonder if I'll turn these London posts into weekly reports...?  Hmmm. Not sure. Nonetheless I will preface this instalment with the note that I did install a British spelling dictionary on my computer, which is why this post contains instalments, realisations, colours, neighbourhoods and favourites. Gotta get rid of those red underlines, right?

This week starts with a big-city scare. Don't worry friends, all's well that ends well. But it was a good learning moment for us. While changing trains, Max ran ahead to try to make it through the open door. He made it, but the train doors closed before Catherine or I got on. I saw him through the window, and his eyes got very wide for a moment, until the conductor (who must have seen me desperately trying to give instructions through the door) re-opened the doors for us. Whew! But the episode certainly did inspire us to think through what to do if we actually got separated.

That didn't stop us -- we just kept on keepin' on with our exploration. This week's activities included visiting Howard Wiseman's shop in the suburb of Penge to get some final adjustments on my lovely new customised alto/soprano sax double case. But we realised after we left we forgot to ask Howard if the spelling of the shop's dog (partially named after Penge) was Pengi or Penji or Pengie or yet something else, and we forgot to snag a picture of the dog.

Howard recommended the nearby pub Moon & Stars where we could have a little nosh while we waited for the work to be completed, so we walked over to get fish & chips and some British ales.

Speaking of food, I discovered that Quorn, our favourite brand of faux-chicken nuggets is originally from the UK. As a vegetarian, I was elated to discover this, because it means that Sainsbury's sells a whole range of Quorn veggie stuff here, most of which we'd never seen in the US.

OK, one final thing on food (oh, who am I kidding, I'll probably write about the food every week). I am still getting confused about one difference in colour usage between the US and UK. Back home, we used the term "red milk" to mean whole. But like driving direction, it's the opposite here!

Saturday we went to the British Museum to see mummies, Egyptian cat sculptures and the Rosetta stone. It's amazing to see such items on display. It made me wish I'd paid more attention to history in school, because I found it quite challenging to keep track of all the various kingdoms, dynasties and city-states represented there.

The British Museum

The actual Rosetta Stone

Greek columns

Lunching by a native Alaskan totem pole

Of course we had to go to Trafalgar Square and toss pennies into the fountain. There's a new sculpture there called "Really Good." I'm not sure whether it is really good, but I do very much admire the unbridled optimism and sheer audaciousness of the thing.

Back at the house, our two fox friends (hmmm, not sure I love that name but what else can I call them?) still come through the backyard at various times throughout the day. They appear to be almost playful, although I doubt the neighbourhood rodents would agree with that observation. Perhaps it would be best for us all to enjoy them from a distance.

 
One day we checked out the London Science Museum. It's deceptively large. Of course it makes sense it would be bigger than Ithaca's wonderful Sciencenter.  It's surely going to provide us fun for many visits while we're here. One exhibit we liked showed digital aging -- what Max might look like as a teenager, and then as an adult. What do you think -- maybe it got close?

After the museum, we walked over to the Ithaca College London Center, supposedly to pick up an Amazon shipment for Max, but also had tea and biscuits and greeted the wonderful staff -- Thorunn, Hannah, Caroline and Orla -- and a gaggle of incoming students who had just arrived in London in the morning. Exciting times!

Elsie -- get it?

After visiting the center, I realized I was going to need a VGA adapter for my Macbook so I could project in the classroom, so we headed over to the Apple store in Covent Garden. I know very little about architecture, but I really enjoyed how Apple built the store into the existing brick structure, keeping the spirit of the building but adding cool modern glass elements like a huge spiral staircase and an elevator.



We decided that for our first West End show (London's equivalent of NYC's Broadway), we should let Max choose what to attend. We'll pick the next one. So, we headed to over to the TKTS booth in Leicester Square and bought matinee tickets for School of Rock. It was a very fun show. Max clearly had a blast. OK, well I suppose I did too.

We decided we needed some type of keyboard for music-making in the house, so we bought a relatively inexpensive Casio on eBay that we could pick up in person rather than have to pay for shipping.

We all headed out to the owner's house to pick up our new keyboard. After the train ride out to a cute little town, following Google Maps' walking directions, Max observed "I never thought we'd be doing something like this."

Indeed, kiddo -- who'dda thunk we'd be here doing any of this stuff at all, exploring London together.

But here we are.

Class starts next week; I'll post an update afterwards.

Ta-ta for now!

-Mike

London Life #1

Several folks have asked for updates on our lives in London, so I'll try to keep up my blog with how things are going here.

The flight to Heathrow was nice 'n' easy, other than Max having a bit of ear pressure/pain at the descent, which was good because -- believe it or not -- this was his first plane trip.

Each person having their own on-demand TV screen makes the trip go by much faster. We all played some silly video games and watched the new Ghostbusters.

We've been here a week now, and already learned of a few differences between life in the UK vs. US. For just one example, movie theaters are more "civilized." You can get beer or wine with your popcorn. Nice, eh? I'm sure I would have enjoyed Rogue One either way, but the bottle of Fosters surely upped the whole experience a notch.

Also spent some time figuring out the various British coins. I didn't even realize there was a two pound coin until after I took this picture, so that's why it's missing. Quiz yourself -- do you know how much each is worth?

Max has been diggin' taking the tube. I agree, it's fun.

On our first full day here, we started walking around the London Bridge area, and decided to get some "tea" (it looks remarkably like chocolate cake and coffee, doesn't it?).

Max then spotted the HMS Belfast in the Thames and got quite excited about it. We saw no reason to wait, so we hopped aboard for the self-guided tour.

Besides all the cool turrets, steam rooms and engines, they had a jail cell for drunken or otherwise misbehaving sailors. Max asked me to pose as if I were dazed and confused. I went with crosseyed.

For New Years eve, were weren't really tired because of the time difference, so when we heard the midnight fireworks, we just went outside the house for a look.

This week we got to some other touristy sites, too, like the monument to the great London fire of 1666. If you look *really* carefully you can see Max and Cathy at the bottom of this shot.

We climbed all 311 steps to the top...

...and got some great views of the whole city!

We also did the Tower Bridge, of course.

We took pictures atop the glass floors (up toward the mirrored ceilings) which overlook the road and the water below.

Oh, and yes, Max is "dabbing" on the glass. Later we just came across this figure in a cute little shop already posed. Oy.

We're very much enjoying the house in Colliers Wood (the cozy home provided by IC). The tube station is right around the corner, and there's a nice park with a playground on the other end of the street. Max and I have already done some Nerf gun "testing" there. Yesterday we had breakfast at Coffee in the Wood, a cute breakfast/lunch place that's also very close. The Sainsbury's grocery store (which is also near a bunch of other shopping) is maybe 7 minutes walk away.

We seem to have two foxes who live / sleep in our little backyard. We've found one or both there almost every morning.

I suppose that's all the news for the moment, but I'll post more when I get the chance.

Cheerio!

-Mike

My Love Affair with the Music of Charlie Parker

This past Christmas my-father-in law bought me a 7-CD box set of live bootleg recordings of Charlie Parker, called the Dean Benedetti Recordings. I started checkin' out my new acquisition on the plane to London. I thought I’d already heard every recording of Bird, but these were new to me. Maybe I’m a bit jaded, but don’t often get chills up my spine with jazz recordings anymore. But boy, this one did it. I had a sensory flashback, and it was an intense feeling. I had to pause a moment and consider why.

The first memory I have of hearing Parker (nicknamed "Bird") was in 8th grade, while taking sax lessons with Brian Scanlon (an amazing player and wonderful teacher, currently making his career on the west coast, playing with the likes of Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band). I had already purchased a book of transcriptions called the Charlie Parker Omnibook, presumably because someone had told me it was “the thing to get.” At that time I was an aspiring computer nerd, so I opened the book to Bird’s solo transcription on Anthropology and entered it into a music synthesis program I had on my Apple II.

I played a cassette of my computerized reproduction for Brian. He listened for a bit, stopped the tape, then asked “Have you actually heard the recording of Bird playing this solo?”

Uhhhh, no.

He played it for me. All I can remember is that the actual recording was thoroughly above my comprehension level. I tried to enjoy it, so I offered Brian the only observation I could -- that transcribing the solo must have been really hard.

He said “Are you kidding? The fact that Bird played that solo is the part that’s hard.”

Well, I just didn't get it.

Yet.

It turned out that this moment was the beginning my love affair with Charlie Parker. I had heard jazz before -- I had been to concerts, and borrowed some jazz albums from the local library, but I didn’t quite connect to those. They just sounded old. But even though Bird was dead, his playing was alive, focused like a laser. He sounded modern to my ears, and I wished I could play with that level of intensity.

As my chops improved over the next couple years, I was able to play some of the melodies and later the improvised solo transcriptions. Eventually I started improvising my own solos over the chord progressions. I immersed myself in all things Bird. I started buying records en masse at the Bop Shop and reading books about him. I soon discovered the one surviving film of Bird actually playing, of Hot House along with Dizzy Gillespie.

One of my purchases was an attractive 10-LP box set of the complete Verve recordings. It’s a compelling mix of recordings from various times in his career. There are studio recordings with Bird's small groups and with ensembles that were presumably more "commercial" at the time, like the "Bird with Strings" sessions and the songs with the Cuban-born percussionist Machito.

The Verve studio recordings are fascinating, in part because the box includes a lot of outtakes (recordings the  musicians or producers decided were unsuitable for release, so they recorded more versions, or "takes"). I listened to the outtakes so often that my high school buddy Bill Havens dubbed them "Bird shit."

But there were also live recordings in the box, like the Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. These were incredibly exciting. The JATP records are concertized pseudo-jam sessions with Bird and a bunch of his contemporaries, including tenor saxophonist Lester Young who himself had been so influential on Bird as a young player. It was astonishing to hear Bird stretch out and play mutiple choruses on 12-bar blues and standard tunes like I Got Rhythm and Sweet Georgia Brown. To listen, I would turn off the lights, close my eyes and imagine what it might have felt like to actually be in the audience those nights, watching and hearing Bird spin out his solos on a big concert stage, right on the spur of the moment. This was my drug, and I had become a complete addict.

In addition to the music, an amazing feature of the Verve box set is the printed discography that came with it. This is not a mere listing of the tunes included in the set, but a compilation of every known Bird recording. It meticulously catalogues every live, studio, bootleg, and even a few home recordings when he was a teenager, and cross referenced them with albums the recordings appeared on (many can be found on multiple albums).

Getting this discography was a revelation. This was the mid 80s, in the pre-internet world when there were no music streaming services. If I wanted to feed my habit, I had to go to the record store, library or bookstore. To listen to a song repeatedly, I had to own it on vinyl.

(Side note: I later bought the Verve set on CD, which is great because it includes several recordings found later and not included in the LP box, but it does not include the discography.)

Quite suddenly, I had become the most nerdy, completest type of collector. I sought out to acquire every Bird recording in existence. I got the complete studio recordings on the Savoy and Dial labels. With each new purchase, I checked them off the list in the discography and penciled in the name of each record. I remember once feeling intense frustration trying to explain to my mom why I was spending real money for an album for its recording of "Ornithology" even though I already owned a record with "Ornithology" on it. "Mom, this one is totally different – a totally different improvised solo!”

But what about the music itself? Bird's studio recordings are fantastic. As a young saxophonist, The high sonic quality allowed me to hear details you can't quite get in live recordings, so they're great for studying the subtle nuances of phrasing, articulation and style. As I tell my students now, this is where you study the accent of jazz.

But it’s the live recordings where the real deal of jazz is found, even when the recording quality is poor. It's the bootlegs where you hear Bird in his purest form, in a setting where no human being alive could match his speed and spontaneous musical imagination. His visceral power can be scary. The phenominal pianist Brad Mehldau calls Bird's live playing "dangerously, menacingly good." Listen to this live version of Lester Leaps In and you'll get a taste of what Mehldau means by that.

Several other live recordings of Bird shook my world, too. Some of the most compelling were a series of radio broadcasts from the Royal Roost, emceed by the legendary DJ Symphony Sid. “Bird on Tenor 1943 – Birth of the Bebop” is amazing as it includes a jam session with Dizzy in a hotel room. I also loved an album called "One Night in Washington" when Bird sat in with the fantastic Bill Potts big band.

The recording that most clearly illuminates the process of learning jazz is the home recording of Bird practicing as a teenager. You can hear that his musical voice was just starting to emerge. He hadn't yet become the powerhouse he would eventually be. But even though I was just a kid myself, I could hear that it was Bird, just practicing some tunes.

And now I have the newest addition to my collection -- the Benedetti box set. To be sure, these are not “easy listening.” The recording quality is poor, and Benedetti often stopped his recorder when Bird wasn’t playing, so most tracks are not complete songs. Some are just a few seconds long. Some are really strange little bits of audio, with very little context. But these recordings are alive. They are messy, imperfect and raw. Bird is just blowing his ass off.

Perhaps it hit me so hard on the plane because I was tired, or maybe I was in a strange frame of mind because I was just about to live in London for five months. But in that moment, listening with headphones and my eyes closed, I was suddenly transported back to my teenage years when I was devouring every bit of Bird I could find, in one of those moments when I brought home some "new find" and put it on the turntable for the first time. I've since had other intense periods of discovery with other creative musicians like Cannonball Adderley, Lee Konitz, Ornette Coleman, Thad Jones and Thelonious Monk. But Charlie Parker was my first.

This all just proves without a doubt the adage that began to appear as grafitti soon after Bird's death in 1955: BIRD LIVES.

Yes he does.

-Mike

Can 2016 Be Saved?

Many of my Facebook friends have decried 2016 to be the worst year ever. I fully understand their feelings, and I cannot disagree with the sentiment. The sheer quantity of beloved cultural icons that died this year is mind numbing: Prince, David Bowie, George Martin, Alan Rickman, Garry Shandling, Muhammad Ali, Kenny Baker, Gene Wilder, Gwen Ifill, Bill Nunn and George Michael, to name just a few of the ones who were important to me. The latest addition to that list, Carrie Fisher, is the rotten cherry on top of the 2016 shit sundae.

But prominent celebrity deaths alone don't tell the whole story of this terrible year. That would exclude the unending drivel coming from the parade of politicians, pundits and Facebook feeds that passed as political discourse this year. 

But before we declare 2016 the worst, we should pause just a moment to look back even further. America has experienced bad years before. By most accounts, 1968 was an utter disaster. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, there was horrific carnage in Vietnam, violence surrounded the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and years of racial tensions boiled over into riots in American cities.  

And, oh yeah -- let's not overlook that 1968 brought the election of a corrupt, ethically-challenged president. Hmmmm. Let's just hope that our current president-elect will, like Richard Nixon before him, demonstrate a sufficient sense of civic duty and choose to resign before his inevitable impeachment hearing, because an actual impeachment could rip the country apart worse than he already has done by his own divisive campaign.

But 1968 had some redeeming qualities, too. The nation's space program provided one uplifting moment, which was recalled in a memorable scene from the HBO docudrama "From the Earth to the Moon." As depicted in the show, while Apollo 8 astronauts were on their voyage home after becoming the first humans to orbit the moon and lay eyes on its far side, the CAPCOM called up and read a telegram that said simply, "You saved 1968." That was no small feat.

I love this moment from the show, but I appreciate 1968 for another reason. My lovely wife was born. And, well, not for nothing, so was I. So even after learning about all the tragedy and strife of 1968, I simply cannot hold the entire year in contempt. Some value came of it.

As 2016 comes to a close, we should acknowledge the good things that happened this year. Beyoncé turned lemons into lemonade, the force awakened, and the Cubs won. I think you can remember at least a few good things, too.

For me personally, I'd like to offer gratitude for the wonderful things that happened in my life this year, and say thanks to all the people who have made this time so deeply gratifying. I've had an amazing opportunity to take a sabbatical, and the time off has been refreshing in many ways. In the last several months alone I have been able to write and perform regularly with fantastic musicians -- students, colleagues, friends and family -- at local venues and around the country. Strange as it may sound, I feel like a musician again. Y'know, makin' music... because music.

Now we're about to start a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend five months in London. Beginning this Thursday, before 2016 has even ended, we'll get to check out British museums, concerts, theater, food, and then travel to other parts of the UK and Europe. And I've never even been to the continent before. I almost can't believe it's really happening. 

As we head off on our adventure abroad, I feel grateful for the gifts I received in 2016, and remain hopeful for a better 2017. I'm not ignoring the bad stuff, but I'm trying my darnedest to put it all into some type of larger context. I know it's not easy, but I do hope you're able to feel the same.

Cheerio, and happy new year-

-Mike

I'm not worried about ME.

I am incredibly lucky.

I am white. I have never had to live with what Professor Gerald Early describes in the Ken Burns' documentary "Jazz" -- that black Americans are "a people who have a historical consciousness of being unfree in a free country." I have never, nor could I ever, truly feel what it is like to be black in America. For Donald Trump to assert that he's the "least racist person," sounds like some macho dude bragging about his totally straight escapades in a blatant effort to compensate for his fear of exposing his latent homosexual feelings. It means the opposite, or at least at a minimum the lack of serious consideration about our racial divide in America.

I am male. I don't have to live with the threat of sexual harassment every day, at work, or just walking down the street. Maybe people have legitimate concerns about Hillary Clinton, but a good portion of what's been said and written about her over the past 30 years is straight-up misogyny. The fact that a majority of women voted for Trump doesn't change that. Perhaps this fact just means women have grown so accustomed to our "boys will be boys" mentality that they've learned to ignore it to survive. 

I am straight. I don't have to live my life under threat that the Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage could be overturned at any time, legally invalidating my family. The court has only recently ruled that any two people have a right to marry and receive all the rights and benefits that go along with being married. President Trump will surely nominate one Supreme Court justice in his first 100 days, and could easily get to nominate a 2nd one. The Republican congress will surely rubber stamp any/all his nominees in short order. Still think this ruling is safe?

I was born in America. I didn't have to come to this amazing country to find a better life; I already have one here. I don't have to wake up every day worried about whether my immigration status might change, separating me from my family, or sending me back to a country that might torture me. I don't have to fear other kids at school harassing and threatening my children. I don't have to live with the knowledge that our next president has used and encouraged inflammatory words against my people.

I am not religious. I don't have to look over my shoulder while I walk to my place of worship, wondering if the stares I'm getting are a just a preface to some hostile action about to be taken against me or my family. I don't have to dread being lumped into the same group as terrorists who claim to worship the same god I do.

I know my fantastic village police officers, and they know me. I don't have to worry about whether they're working to protect me or not; I know that they are. I call them when I need them. When I get pulled over, we're all safe -- my family and the officers -- and I think we all know it. I believe most reasonable people are aware that some folks in other places do not reap this level of reward in their relationship with the police.

I have tenure at a wonderful comprehensive liberal arts college. I will never again have to worry about losing my job, or about being left behind in a changing economic world. I never have to worry about whether my children will have enough to eat, be clothed, or if they'll have the ability to pursue their passions in this life.

My life pretty much exemplifies the textbook definition of privilege.

By acknowledging my privileged status I am not saying that all my successes are based on luck. I have taken risks and have worked my ass off to achieve what I have. But the truth is that I started out with a multiple-stroke handicap (hmmm, I wonder if the fact that I just used a golf analogy to describe my upbringing says something significant).

I was lucky to be born into a family that cared about intellectual pursuits. Even though we didn't have money to spare growing up, my mom was always willing to spend a little extra on a book if I really needed it. I was encouraged to pursue my musical passion and permitted to spend thousands of hours working diligently so that I could ultimately achieve so much and have a satisfying and comfortable life.

For all this I am profoundly grateful.

So yeah, I'm not worried about me.