Recent Pleasures
I have this theory, lots of theories really, but this one in particular, that I can tell with a pretty high degree of certainty if I'm going to enjoy reading a book just by looking at a couple of its pages. This bothers me somewhat, because it seems like if I gave the practice free reign then I'd never expose myself to anything new and unexpected. Also, almost every Nabokov novel I've read didn't make any sense for the first 80-150 pages, and then he drops you the last little fastener that makes everything he's done suddenly drop perfectly into place and you realize with staggering clarity once again what an awesome genius he is, and if I'd given up short of that point I wouldn't have seen it.
But the other weekend I was visiting my parents and picked up a book on their couch, The House That George Built, and knew within the first couple of sentences that I'd love reading the book. The reason I was visiting them that particular weekend was that it was my birthday, and the next day I unwrapped my very own copy for myself!
And I loved it! It's a great read! I trace my own knowledge of the music of that period back to two main sources: the Butch Thompson Trio playing on the Prairie Home Companion back in the early Eighties, and the albums Linda Ronstadt made with Nelson Riddle, torch songs from the Jazz Age, also around the same time. Then sometime around 1991 listening to Sarah Klotz de Aguilar (then just Sarah Klotz) give me a tour in Cole Porter at a piano bar in the Crocker Galleria. Important as a matter of cultural literacy, I think I heard mentioned once that the only true American art forms are jazz, comic books, and Broadway musical comedy. I might have that wrong, though.
So in the chapters about the big guns, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hart, I think I recognize about half the songs he mentions. In some of the chapters I've heard of neither the musician nor any of the songs. But writing still pulls me through the chapter, loving every word. So infectious, Sheedy's enthusiasm.
After reading, or while reading, I needed to hear some of that music. I went back to a CD set of American popular songs that I own but don't really like that much, but it wasn't doing it for me. Then I realized a better way to do it--my own fingers. Hurrah for the piano! Bravo to Amazon!
But the other weekend I was visiting my parents and picked up a book on their couch, The House That George Built, and knew within the first couple of sentences that I'd love reading the book. The reason I was visiting them that particular weekend was that it was my birthday, and the next day I unwrapped my very own copy for myself!
And I loved it! It's a great read! I trace my own knowledge of the music of that period back to two main sources: the Butch Thompson Trio playing on the Prairie Home Companion back in the early Eighties, and the albums Linda Ronstadt made with Nelson Riddle, torch songs from the Jazz Age, also around the same time. Then sometime around 1991 listening to Sarah Klotz de Aguilar (then just Sarah Klotz) give me a tour in Cole Porter at a piano bar in the Crocker Galleria. Important as a matter of cultural literacy, I think I heard mentioned once that the only true American art forms are jazz, comic books, and Broadway musical comedy. I might have that wrong, though.
So in the chapters about the big guns, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hart, I think I recognize about half the songs he mentions. In some of the chapters I've heard of neither the musician nor any of the songs. But writing still pulls me through the chapter, loving every word. So infectious, Sheedy's enthusiasm.
After reading, or while reading, I needed to hear some of that music. I went back to a CD set of American popular songs that I own but don't really like that much, but it wasn't doing it for me. Then I realized a better way to do it--my own fingers. Hurrah for the piano! Bravo to Amazon!
Harold Arlen is stuff like Over the Rainbow, Stormy Weather, Blues in the Night (My Mamma Done Told Me), The Man That Got Away, One For My Baby (and One More For The Road).
Rogers and Hart (Richard Rogers' first incarnation, before Hammerstein) is This Can't Be Love, It Never Entered My Mind, My Funny Valentine, Thou Swell, You Took Advantage Of Me.
Fun stuff. So much fun, in fact, I'm going to get away from the computer right now and go play some. (I already worked out on the octave mandolin this morning, and got addicted to a medieval Cornish tune called "When Jesus Christ Was Twelve Years Old.")
Rogers and Hart (Richard Rogers' first incarnation, before Hammerstein) is This Can't Be Love, It Never Entered My Mind, My Funny Valentine, Thou Swell, You Took Advantage Of Me.
Fun stuff. So much fun, in fact, I'm going to get away from the computer right now and go play some. (I already worked out on the octave mandolin this morning, and got addicted to a medieval Cornish tune called "When Jesus Christ Was Twelve Years Old.")
