While symphony orchestras continue their tradition of playing symphonies, concertos, and overtures, American ensembles have their own unique tradition of the pops repertoire.
It can be traced to what Arthur Fiedler did in Boston as he pushed the light classics repertoire into a blend all his own. Or it can be traced to John Philip Sousa’s work a generation earlier with the concert band.
Either way, something remarkable happened in the aftermath.
First, while Fiedler was still busy in Boston, Max Rudolf asked his young associate conductor Erich Kunzel to take over the Eight O’Clock series in Cincinnati. He told Kunzel there were a thousand young conductors who aspired to Mahler, but here was a repertoire begging for leadership – and Rudolf was overwhelmed as it was.
The rest is musical history.
Just look at the recordings – and that’s just the tip of an iceberg that includes performances with Tina Turner (when she could really use them) and local bluegrass bands and, well, anything that was music. Kunzel was also big on extending local connections.
Somebody could probably do a doctoral dissertation on the way Kunzel built a spider web of concert themes. You can look to his fabulous Telarc recordings to build the connections. The Hollywood albums, of course. Plus Mancini. There were all the Star Wars/Star Trek albums, each leading to the next. The Roundup album led to Happy Trails and Down on the Farm. The light classics discs soon focus on American orchestral selections leading to the piano and orchestra masterpieces as well as the Gershwin series. Well, they radiate outward, each one rising on something earlier.
The Cincinnati trustees quickly established Kunzel’s Pops ensemble as a separate brand, one that played throughout the year, unlike Boston, where the pops band is a late spring/early summer staple.
Each to his own.
So second, I should point out that when the flamboyant Kunzel was passed over in Boston after Fiedler’s demise, the film composer John Williams instilled another repertoire, giving film music an esteemed place.
I should add that the two become big fans of each other, rather than seeing themselves as rivals.
Now that’s music-making!
There’s much more, I sense, in that range between popular (commercial) music and traditional orchestral fare that could be explored – a third stream, more adventurous than most pops programming and, dare I say, than most classical scheduling these days.
As I hope will yet happen.
As for a connection between these two cities? Kunzel’s assistant, Keith Lockhart, took Williams’ place on the podium in Boston. Seems like just yesterday, though it’s been … I don’t want to count!
On my Monday free of the office, I drove up the palisades to nose around a picturesque river city in dull, mid-October weather. Looked at the signs. City Fish Market – Fresh or Smoked, down along the water. “Bill’s,” one door said; the other was “Private.” Down the main street from Doug’s Steak House, which was supposed to be THE place for Mississippi catfish, the town school stood in front of Lock and Dam No. 10.
I pulled into the Corps of Engineers parking lot as the Jack Wofford pushed its barges into the lock, noticed an observation tower, and climbed up to a deck occupied by mostly married retirees. But in the corner, more my age, was a woman in a London Fog trench coat and big boots, her long, black hair blowing in the cold wind. For a while I wondered if she was part of the pairs and quartets of older folks with their cameras who had come to view the autumn foliage and poke around the gift shops and galleries. She turned her head, noticed me briefly, turned back several times. Between twenty-five and thirty-two, I guessed. Proper makeup, classy.
Then, on the riverboat, a cook appeared at a door and fired back with his camera. She laughed.
Once the retirees beside her left, I asked her how the crews got their three lengths of barges – 3×3, for nine in all – out of the locks. “I don’t know,” almost a question. “I’ve never been here before.”
This time I noticed her crooked teeth. Began to wonder about games.
The cook emerged again, this time from the pilot house, and threw something, calculating for the wind. The object curved sharply at the last moment, into her fine catch. She unwrapped it a bit, saw it was a brownie with a phone number and address inside. She giggled to another old couple: “I think he’s had a lot of experience.”
Once the riverboat churned out of the lock, she descended to a powder blue Ford Torino, donned kid gloves with little holes for driving, and drove off.
The wrapper around her plates left me wondering if she was from the Henry County in Iowa or the one up in Minnesota.
I was left wondering, of course. Why so dressed up? And free on a Monday? That wasn’t a typical single person’s car. A professional, between stops? An art major, who gave it up for money? A government worker, with Columbus Day free? Off to a sweet rendezvous? Delightful divorced? Bored, with kids?
Me, at the time, with my own wife a thousand miles to the west, presumably finishing college.
A central problem for newspapers in the past half century is that they became increasingly homogenized and thus lost their distinctive, individual identities. Admittedly, that was always a problem when people saw it as “the paper” rather than the Times or Post or Chronicle or Herald and so on. But in the days when a city would have two or more daily newspapers, each one needed to have some unique identity to set it apart in the marketplace. Sometimes it was along party lines – Republican or Democrat – or social identities, such as blue-collar or proper society, but often it also meant the kind of news that was emphasized: national and international, for instance, versus local. And hometown columnists were always a voice that readers could count on. Think Herb Caen in San Francisco, Mike Royko in Chicago, or Jimmy Breslin in New York – or any of the great sportswriters.
In those days, newspapers were thinner than they became in the last decades of the 20th century – often just two sections – rather than the four to eight that followed in the great mergers and closures that led most cities to have only one daily journal. Much of that problem, we should note, could be blamed on the “unduplicated readership” that ad-space buyers relied on in allocating their budgets. No matter how marvelous the Washington Star was in its final days, or the suburban Journal papers were in the counties around the city, they couldn’t overcome that hurdle – when it came to outright readership, the Washington Post had the monopoly. Since everybody had to read it, there was no point in advertising elsewhere.
With few exceptions – New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia – we’re left with single-paper markets where the product looks and reads like those everywhere else, except that the stories take place there than elsewhere.
As the local newspaper more and more became a one-size-fits-all model, what I no longer heard was the feeling that it “speaks for me” or my section of the wider community. And now, even those special voices within its pages are no longer there – one by one, the columnists were never replaced.
The newspaper I longed to create had little resemblance to that bland crime-and-crashes emphasis that too often prevails these days, in place of more difficult and costly investigative reporting or a bigger view that critically examines education, the fine arts, social justice, the environment, and so on.
It’s hard to get excited by what’s there. And we wonder why circulation kept declining even before the Internet?
This is, I should note, a contrarian viewpoint, since the publishers kept proclaiming the “improved service” each time they merged two papers into one. So here we are, online and blogging.
~*~
Hometown News
To find out more about Hometown News or to obtain your own copy, go to my page at Smashwords.com.
Rockport, Massachusetts, sits at the end of Cape Ann.
Mention “the Cape” anywhere in New England and people assume you’re talking about Cape Cod, that marvelous arm extending from southeastern Massachusetts. (Well, it does have its own dictionary entry.)
Mention “the Other Cape,” and a few knowing heads will nod or smile in recognition of Cape Ann, jutting from Boston’s North Shore.
It’s not that those are New England’s only two points of land extending into the ocean – the definition of a cape. For perspective, two of Maine’s most photographed lighthouses are on Cape Elizabeth and, close to us, Cape Neddick.
What Cape Ann and Cape Cod share is a certain ambience, a feeling that – well, you’re in a unique place and not just anywhere in New England.
If you’re not familiar with Cape Cod, let me say there are many fine guidebooks that describe the experience. Today’s gallivant, though, takes us ever so briefly to Cape Ann, which by its most generous definitions (probably mine) can be no more than a third the length of its famed rival. While Cape Cod is neatly demarked by the Bourne and Sagamore bridges, Cape Ann is a bit more diffusive. Since we come down from the north, we find that “Cape” familiarity in the air as we come into Ipswich, which claims more “first period houses” (1625 to 1725) than anywhere else in America – 58 in all. It’s a charming community and, like most of Cape Ann itself, has a more varied mix of social classes than you typically find on the bigger peninsula.
My introduction to the town came last fall when K. Peddlar Bridges invited me down to do a poetry reading on his Roadpoet cable-access television show – and we had a blast. Before the taping, I went for a walk through some lovely year-round neighborhoods that could stand as textbook tours of American architectural styles. I crossed a stone arched bridge as geese took V-formation and honked low above me. Turns out the 1764 Choate Bridge is the oldest double stone arch bridge in continuous use in the country. (I don’t make this up, nor do I challenge the accuracy of the claims.) Leading to an impressive Colonial-era garrison house, the span connects to Turkey Shore and Labor in Vain roads. You get the picture. And, yes, you don’t get a better sense of that Puritan outlook than “Labor in Vain,” do you?
The reproduction 1657 Alexander Knight house in Ipswich, Massachusetts, suggests the difficult life facing the early settlers, especially through a New England winter.The elegant 1677 Whipple House in Ipswich is considerably smaller than the House of the Seven Gables in Salem but similar in style.
So the next week, my wife and I took off for a fuller exploration. We headed on down the road through gentleman farms and veered off for Crane Beach, passing long vistas of salt marshes where prized hay was once harvested. (It was high in mineral nutrition but gave the milk a salty taste, according to the tales.)
The beach itself was once part of the Crane family’s Castle Hill summer estate, which is another destination. The estate, the 1,234-acre Castle Neck dunes and beach, and adjacent 700-acre wildlife preserve are part of the Trustees of Reservations holdings. (Be advised, there’s an admission fee to the park – $8 a car when we went; up to $25 a car on summer weekends.)
But what a beach! My wife was overjoyed to see white sand, like those of her native North Carolina, rather than the usual gray or brown of New England. And that sand seems to run on forever, with fascinating patches of rippled washboard, tufts of sea oats, and an array of shells we don’t find in our usual rounds of the coast. It may have been October, but our nostrils were greeted with that distinctive Coppertone aroma, and our eyes viewed an array of sun worshippers extending their tans as well as a few daring souls in the water. We walked and walked and, well, might still be walking if we hadn’t felt hunger kick in.
We’ll be back.
Washboarding and footprints decorate the sand at Crane Beach.Here’s a view looking into a dune behind the beach.
Venturing on, we came into the small waterside village of Essex, where we poked into Woodman’s “in the rough” for a seafood lunch. “Rough,” which is also in the name of an outdoor haunt we love in York, Maine, seems to indicate ordering and picking up from a counter rather than wait staff service, as well as a picnic-flavor rustic decor. As we looked at the blackboard and its prices, we nearly left for cheaper fare, but Rachel caught a posted review by food gurus Michael and Jane Stern – and I knew we weren’t leaving. I’m glad we stayed.
It was fun and filling – they don’t skimp on their portions. We can see why it’s a classic destination for the traditional regional seafood, especially of the “messy” sort. And, as she said, they “know how to do batter.” That’s a high compliment on her part. (Onion rings, anyone?)
The heart of Cape Ann is the city of Gloucester and its varied neighborhoods around the waters. It claims to be from the same year as Dover, although unlike my city, it was abandoned for a period, and is about the same size, roughly 29,000 residents. It lays claim to being America’s oldest seaport and has always been a busy, often brutish, fishing harbor. Gorton’s Seafood uses the city’s sea captain sculpture as its emblem. The Perfect Storm movie captures some of this legacy. These days it’s also the home to a number of whale-watch operations, due to its proximity to the famed Stellwagen Bank fishing grounds. In the 1950s and ’60s poet Charles Olson sought to capture the local spirit in his Maximus series, drawing on Ezra Pound’s literary foundation.
For us, though, the glory of the place is its three large wind-generator turbines rotating gracefully from the highest points along Route 128. They are immense works of art, comforting, landmarks. How anyone can oppose their construction baffles us. And, yes, they do sing … softly.
The trees might give you an idea of the scale and majesty of these Cape Ann landmarks.
Cape Ann culminates in the town of Rockport, which has long attracted summer artists to its shores. More recently, the three-decade old Rockport chamber music summer festival has developed a loyal following, which led to the 2010 opening of the 330-seat Shalin Liu Performance Center and its year-round offerings that include classical, folk, blues, and jazz. When they say “intimate,” it’s true. What makes this hall truly amazing is that the back of the stage has wooden panels, for acoustical purposes, that roll away to reveal a panorama of the harbor. Maybe the Santa Fe Opera surpasses the view, but I bet you can find folks who can quibble.
The village itself has much of the Cape Cod shopping flavor of boutiques, restaurants, artist galleries, jewelers, and so on – especially in its Bearskin Neck district.
The big window in the largest building overlooking Rockport Harbor is the back of the stage at the Shalin Liu Performance Center. By the way, the tide’s out. We were among a crowd enjoying an art installation that doubled as sunny seating on one of the stone wharves.Downtown Rockport has a traditional blend of resort retailers … and shoppers to match.
By the way, Massachusetts Bay Transit trains run from Boston’s North Station to Rockport, with Cape Ann stops along the way.
While I mentioned whale watches, I should note we prefer to venture out from Newburyport to the north, in part because the vessel there has the option of heading to either Stellwagen Bank in Massachusetts Bay or Jeffrey’s Ledge in the Gulf of Maine. When it goes to Stellwagen, though, it cruises around Cape Ann and offers fine views of the Straightsmouth Island and Thacher Island twin lighthouses – the 1861 replacements for the 1771 originals – closer to Gloucester Harbor.
Even as a cub reporter, I loved writing long pieces. It’s what I prefer to read, really read, when I have time. By long, I don’t mean pointless minutia or the trivia of, say, a public hearing, but rather the probing look at how and why a thing has happened and maybe even what to expect as a consequence. Add to that the human dimension, especially from the point of view of those most impacted by the action rather than those at the top of the pyramid.
One model of this style of news writing came in the three stories on the front page of the Wall Street Journal each day – what they called their “leaders,” back in the era before Murdoch. If you looked closely, you’d see how each one was composed of several smaller stories, each one telescoping into the next. The reporters could joke that their work was so heavily edited they no longer recognized the finished version, but for those of us reading, the result was rewarding, the way a good meal is.
As a journalist, the irony has been that I spent much of my career crafting headlines and photo captions … short, short, short … and that was even before I relied more and more on news briefing columns to get the day’s world and nation reports into the paper at all.
Not that I lost my love of long writing. My “shelf” of ebook novels is proof of that, including my most recent, which delves into the news business itself.
As a blogger, though, I’m also admitting pleasure in composing shorter postings like the ones that appear here at Jnana’s Red Barn. Apparently, from the stats, they must be connecting.
My other four blogs provide venues for the longer writing, and the results to date are mixed.
To my surprise, my genealogy blog, The Orphan George Chronicles, has drawn far more hits than I’d anticipated. I figured its appeal would be to a few dozen fellow researchers, and having the results online would be much easier to find than if the files were archived in a few libraries somewhere. As for publishing them in paper editions, the likely audience would never cover the expenses.
My Quaker blog, As Light Is Sown, has shifted from the two book-length presentations that appear as the initial postings to a year-long Daybook of short postings, so I must admit that trying to analyze the results there can be inconclusive.
Thistle/Flinch exists to present book-length PDF editions of poetry and fiction, so I guess you can say that’s writing long.
And the remaining blog, Chicken Farmer I Still Love You, is still taking shape, as the numbers show. The first part, Talking Money, presents essential material for addressing the material sides of life … income, spending, wealth, possessions, labor, time, goals, and the like … followed by a close look at New England’s famed foliage. These days, it’s taken on a new focus in reconsidering the hippie outbreak and its renewal. Again, many of its postings are chapters for book-length presentation.
What I am finding in general is that even without the demands of daily employment, time is still the most precious commodity in my life. There just ain’t enough of it for what I hope to accomplish these days – including reading or writing, much less in any length.
So I guess that’s the short of it, for now.
~*~
Hometown News
To find out more about Hometown News or to obtain your own copy, go to my page at Smashwords.com.
The stupidity of some people never fails to impress. You hear of those who refuse to leave the path of disaster or see pictures of families standing by an ocean churned by an approaching hurricane. You know, the foolish ones who then expect emergency personnel to come to their rescue (at personal risk and public expense).
I’ve learned to respect the moodiness of the ocean and its quick changes – the summer thunderstorms that come out of nowhere, for starters. If the Coast Guard or lifeguards say “Get out of the water,” just do it rather than ask questions. If the captain of the boat says “Get down under,” just do it.
Even before the hail or power outages.
How quickly it all passes, too, and everything looks perfectly serene again, with no hint of what just happened.
My wife and I once watched a deluge approach, strike, and return to normal all in the course of a seaside lunch. Fortunately, we were indoors, our table beside the window.
One of my first lessons came a few months after the 1991 Halloween nor’easter now known as the Perfect Storm. In New England, a nor’easter is akin to a cold-weather, slow-moving hurricane. One moonlit night three or four months after this one, I was driving along Cape Ann in Massachusetts and was awed by the depth of sand still piled along the roadway – like plowed snow, in fact – up on ridges out of view of the ocean. Such was the impact of the Perfect Storm.
But this was a calm night and coming to an overlook, I pulled over, got out of the car, and walked out on a ledge a good 20 or 30 feet above the water. I was still back from the edge when a large wave crashed up behind me and swirled off just to my side. I realized the current could have knocked me off my feet and into the brine below. I’m a good swimmer, but fully clothed in icy water driving into rocks would be a fatal combination.
Yes, I’ve learned to respect the ocean and be wary.
Before my graduation from college, back in my social activist period, I wondered how American society could possible afford High Art while so many went hungry and homeless – domestically as well as internationally. Then I began to see everywhere a desire for expressiveness even in every ghetto – for that matter, ranging from ghetto blasters to Playboy. There were murals and blues bands. To say nothing of the infusion of professional sports, to which every poor youth, from the inner city to the mining company towns, seems to aspire. So opera and museums and other “Establishment” operations came to lose their exclusivity in my mind. Indeed, over the years I’ve heard that the real classical music lovers are the ones in the cheaper seats, the ones they can afford. Mankind, after all, has a need to reach to the higher realms of thought and the imagination of the spirit; anything less reduces our existence to nothing more than economics, impoverishing everyone in the society.
Look closely, and you’ll also see that in America, Art has become the state religion, no matter the level of state and federal funding exists. In this country, at least, there’s also been a long recognition of the fine arts as an adjunct to wealth, for whatever reasons. Many sense an abstract “goodness” in the products of art chamber music, art museums, Shakespeare festivals, opera, poetry, the “book” that so many people dream of writing even if the artist himself/herself remains (often with good reason!) somewhat suspect, a shady character. Perhaps that’s why these big institutions stand between us and the rest of ourselves, as artists and audiences. Something abstractly “good” even when they themselves admit they don’t know much about the field. Contrast that to the related state religions in America: collegiate and professional athletics, Hollywood movies, and rock concerts, wherein no one actually advocates any common wealth. (The High Priests are paid handsomely, after all.)
Art as the semi official State Religion of today? Or should that be entertainment and its host of celebrity worship? The stamp of approval. The aspiration.
Art as commodity, too. “How much did it sell for?” What was the box office?
At heart, all art is, primarily, either spiritual/religious or secular/amusement in intent and execution. Take Milton or Pepys. Today, the overwhelming materialism of our society reflects an insatiable hunger.
Even as starving artists we’re enmeshed in materialism, one way or another. It’s so easy to hold the artist up in some idealized light or the product itself as the object of worship, an idolatry, totally forgetting to turn to the Source of All. The worship of living genius, from Beethoven and the Romantic era on. Or the pretty faces of mostly Hollywood celebrity today.
As an editor on newspapers where nearly everyone was giving totally (many unpaid hours of overtime, etc.) in an attempt for excellence, I was always appalled by the charge of “elitism,” which comes to mean “give me mediocrity not the truth” or “mere pleasantry” from the same people who would not accept such standards in their professional football team or new automobile.
The shift in the meaning of “culture” from learning and aspiration to the mundane lowest common denominator of daily life. Culture, as in a petri dish of mold or germs, rather than a rare book library or new opera.
Still, if you want to comprehend the view from the top of the mountain, you need to climb it. And be warned: driving, if a road’s an option, loses a lot in the translation. From a religious point of view, at least, we can’t settle for anything less than the best in the end.
Back when I was living in the townhouse apartments “on the hill,” the preschool tot next door was learning he could manipulate me presumably, any grown up into waving to him. All he has to do is wave first.
At first, he was pretty shy, wondering whether he should wave at all when I wiggled my hand or arm in his direction before driving off to the office or the grocery. In time he became more intrigued, hovering at their open front door or staying close to his mother if she were sitting at their stoop.
And then he became bolder. One morning, he parted their upstairs blinds and cried out from the window to me, just so I could see his smile and wave.
The next day, he told me as he rode his bike around the parking lot, “I runned into your car.”
“Oh, where’d you hit it,” I replied, not the least worried, not with all the rust spots that are appearing simultaneously on my well worn vehicle.
“On the tire!” he piped up as I performed a mock inspection.
And finally, he came charging out the door just as I was about to drive off, grinning and hailing me in huge motions. “Welcome!” he cried out. “Welcome to Walmart!”
“Well, say `hi’ to Sam for me!” I chuckled.
His father, a few steps behind, shrugged as they set off on their errands.
RiverSing is accompanied by large butterflies and other imaginative creations from Moonship Productions and the Puppeteers Cooperative. Here’s one by daylight.And if you’ve ever wanted to converse with a butterfly, here’s your chance.Once the sun goes down, the butterflies take on a new look as they swirl at the margin of the audience.
Best known for its 16 packed shows in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre each Christmas, Boston’s Revels organization also presents many other activities of community-enhancing music, theater, dance, and storytelling for family audiences through the year.
Each autumn, for instance, it welcomes the equinox with a free Sunday evening concert along the Charles River in Cambridge, which takes place tonight with activities beginning at 5 p.m. in Winthrop Park at Harvard Square. A police-escorted street procession leads down to the riverside, where thousands settle in for a two-hour high-energy performance.
The marvelous Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band plays a lively set in Winthrop Park before it escorts a large procession to the Charles River. I’ll refrain from telling stories about the trombonist on the right, whom I’ve known long before he even knew about trombones.
Last year’s concert featured Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame, and I was part of the chorus of 120 behind him. It was a blast.
Here we are, with Noel Paul Stookey beside conductor, arranger, and master of ceremonies George Emlen in the white tie-and-tails.After the show, this puppet quickly filled with children.
The stage also provided some great views of the sunset and audience, which was ringed by glowing butterflies. It was a magical experience.
My wife took these photos with her phone. For some showing my face in the choir, though, go to the Revels site.
If you’re in New England, consider showing up tonight. The more, in this case, the merrier.
We’d get the phone call. “You promised a story.” We knew we’d been very careful not to do that. Instead, it was, “I’ll look into that” or “I’ll pass that along to the appropriate editor for a decision.”
My favorite was the caller who claimed to be good friends with the publisher, who had promised the coverage. Followed by our response, “You know she died twelve years ago?” And their embarrassed silence.
Of course, it’s not just stories.
People read into the most carefully crafted texts and then respond to only the parts they want to hear while tuning out the rest. Or they just plain tune out. It’s called the theory of cognitive dissonance. If they think you’re agreeing with them, they’ll bend the message their way. If they think you’re critical, they’ll shove you out altogether.
Often, all tripping over a tiny detail or two.
~*~
Oh, how I came to hate the telephone when I worked in the newsroom! If you want further proof, just go to my novel Hometown News.
Jnana's Red Barn 