The other day in Texas, a strange thing happened to me…..(this
could be the beginning of a million bad stories)
Ok, Scratch that. Mulligan......
Sitting at a table in San Antonio, in a room full of people,
and the music started. I could see the
music, no not like in a Dr. Sues book with pink and blue balloon notes, but real
notes on a staff. A few Quarter notes
and a Eighth note, and in the Bass Clef the chord or two, but it was enough. I was hearing music and reading it as well,
it gave me goose bumps and a tingle in the base of my spine. I could feel this music, and for the first
time in 15 years was reading it; feeling it, like I was in the orchestra. Then the guy at the podium began speaking ,
which of course makes sense since the music was on a PowerPoint presentation,
but nonetheless wrecked any whisp of transcendental emotion available. In retrospect it’s a bit odd to become
transfixed by the theme to the Connecticut tourism commission, but again this
was Texas so anything without a steal guitar was a blessing.
A week goes by, I’m languishing in a conference room in
Iowa, listening to a presentation for the umpteenth time, watching a PowerPoint get tweaked literally hours before the presentation…..and again the music
starts. It had been a long day so when I
heard Artie Shaw’s version of “Begin the Beguine” I had to stop myself from
proclaiming “I love this song!” since it became obvious after the first few opening
bars that no one else heard it. But I
heard it….ba da bump, Da dot da dot
daaaa dot, and then the clarinet picks off the melody and floats through the
brass and guitar chords……perfection. You owe it to yourself to follow this link and hear this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps05TaQuYvc.
Cole Porter wrote this tune, Artie Shaw made it famous, and it’s an amazing 108
measures long. There is no bridge, no
coda, no repetition, each phrase is unique, the song begins, moves and ends on
its own, when it wants, and it sits!
I used to play his song in a semi pro jazz band, and when it
was right, just right, you could feel the weight of the melody as it left the
room. A few beats would go by and the band leader would yell “sit down!!!!” And
we would play the song again, with an extra lazy swing, tight and heavy, “sittin
on the swing” with nowhere to go, until the band was just shy of fashionably
late. This song defines a genre. It is
swing.
If you had to choose a melody to define your life, could
you? It’s been done and clichéd to death.
(Especially in movies with soul
searching interludes after the big conflict scene complete with close ups of
the actors staring blankly out a window, and dejectedly eating dinner, here the
director uses music to cut out one sided dialog and save money on
rewrites)
We all thought we had the song
of our lives with “Stair way to Heaven”
at the 7th grade dance, or “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” in a the freshmen
dorm…..maybe Green Days, When September ends or Will Smiths Summertime….Anything
Jimmy Buffet….I Got it, Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry!” whatever…..it’s your
song you get to pick it. However for anthem
status you need to keep it, 30 years in, Slim Shady, or Wonderwall (what the
hell is a Champaign Supernova anyway?) don’t cut it. The song needs legs and it
has to be patient…..Begin the Beguine fits the bill for me.
The beauty here is the song doesn’t repeat. The melody holds true, and is instantly recognizable
but there is no hook…..no repeats. You
are not memorizing the chord progression and fudging your way through this
song. Cole Porter and Artie themselves famously proclaimed it was impossible to
know the whole song, they had to read it when they performed, which means each time, each bar was a
surprise. The parallels to life are there, go find them yourself.
Fairly sure I can chalk up the music in Iowa to dehydration and
a bad case of flat ass syndrome, and in Texas to the Connecticut Tourism
representative, so insanity for the time being is out. However I’m pleased that my life has a sound
track and it’s a bit more profound the most of the music in my collection. I like to think I know the whole song, but of
course I don’t, none of us do. We wont
know the whole song until it ends, and there will be not repeats, no coda….we have
got to sit down and enjoy the melody
while it swings and marvel at it, as it leaves the room, gone but not forgotten.
