Winning Words 8/25/11
“I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds.” (Dizzy Gillespie) Today is the birthday of Leonard Bernstein and Billy Ray Cyrus. In their honor I chose a quote by the bebop artist known for his crooked horn and his name, Dizzy. Leonard, Billy Ray and Dizzy…What a sound that trio would make. Beauty is in the ear of the listener. I like many kinds of music, but not necessarily on the same program. ;-) Jack

FROM RI IN BOSTON: Unlike Dizzy, I do care about music, but much of what I hear these days is "sounds"...and to be more emphatic, I consider it noise.////FROM JACK: I take that you prefer Leonard over bebop and Achy-Breaky Heart.

FROM PLAIN FOLKS CHESTER: Some of today's music is like scratching your fingernails on a blackboard. But, then sometimes Dizzy got on my nerves too. Used to see him a lot when I was in school in Chicago. Prefer Armstrong.////FROM JACK: Try scratching your fingernails on an iPad.

FROM PH IN MINNESOTA: i always wondered how his horn got bent? did somebody sit on it?? ////FROM JACK: Here's what I read....Like many important discoveries, Dizzy's bent trumpet came about by accident. Gillespie, who died in 1993 at age 75, threw a party for his wife, Lorraine, at Snookie's in Manhattan on Jan. 6, 1953. Leaving his horn on a trumpet stand, he left to do a quick radio interview. The dance duo Stump and Stumpy started fooling around on the bandstand; Stump pushed Stumpy, who fell onto Dizzy's horn, bending the bell skyward. It was such an unsettling sight that saxophonist Illinois Jacquet left the club before Gillespie returned; he didn't want to be around when the jazzman saw his misshapen horn and blew his top. But Gillespie kept his cool. "It was my wife's birthday and I didn't wanna be a drag," he wrote in his autobiography, "To Be or Not to Bop." "I put the horn to my mouth and started playing. I played it and I liked the sound . . . it could be played softly, very softly, not blarey." He had the horn straightened out the next day but couldn't get that sound out of his mind. "I remembered the way the sound had come from it, quicker to the ear, my ear," Gillespie recalled. The 45- degree angle brought the bell closer and let him hear the sound sooner.

FROM TAMPA SHIRL: That would certainly be a different kind of sound. It is hard to imagine what it would be like. I like all kinds of music, too, but I haven't mastered the Ipod or the MP3 like my grandchildren. Have you? My favorite memories are of the jazz concert at the Chicago Opera House with Louie Armstrong, Benny Goodman, one the of the Dorsey. One of the best country I have heard is in Branson, and the operas in New York City, plus the musicals. We still have a lot a 78s which most people have already discarded. The liturgical music is beautiful, too. How Great Thou Art was sung at Mass in Maui, and I still remember that wi th fond memories, too.////FROM JACK: What if people who don't like harp music find themselves in heaven ...Would that be hell? ...and, no, I don't have an iPod. I can play music on my computer while I'm writing my message. Steve Martin, playing the banjo, is good.

FROM SH IN MICHIGAN: I like a lot of sounds. Sometimes even just a bunch of screaming musically performed I interpret as a relevant message needing to get through to the audience. Once saw a pianist that banged away with spoons and everything all over every part of his piano. That was stretching the musical imagination. Then I think "I could do that art" sort of like making a large black spot in the middle of a white canvas and calling it modern. We contemporary people are pretty talented and amazing. In our search for simplicity I guess.//// FROM JACK: I'm going to try and attach some interesting sounds to the blog. Enjoy!

THE SOUNDS....It looks like I can't attach the sounds, but, if you ask me, I'll send you some.

FROM BLAZING OAKS: As has been said, "music IS the universal language"...but I remember sitting through a five hr. Kabuki theatre historical musical in Tokyo, and thinking I wouldn't care if I never heard another high, wailing, keening, song in my entire life! (Not to say it wasn't fascinating, as men played all the parts in Japanese Theatre, and they were fabulous, even as women and girls!! ) Different types of music enrich our lives at different times, but rap and be-bop, and scat jazz and loud rock and roll tend to rattle by senses! Having been a music teacher and choir director, I can't imagine life without the lyrical melodies! ////FROM JACK: One of my friends is from Iraq. I told him that the music played by Iraqi musicians is about my least favorite music. I don't think that he likes Glenn Miller, either.

FROM RI IN BOSTON: Reading from Blazing Oaks comments...Hiroko also wonders why Kabuki remains alive today when it is so dispassionate.////FROM JACK: I personally know of a minister whose congregation dwindled to no members. He continued to hold Sunday services for two years, preparing sermons, preaching them, singing hymns, and praying. I wonder, why? Somehow, Hiroko's comment triggered that thought in my mind. To me, it relates.

FROM ALIBI-IKE IN MICHIGAN: I LOVE music ! because it truly affects the soul but do not like ALL music & do not want to offend other people's taste by calling it BAD just because I don't like what they like..so I adopted the acronym BIG-Boring--Irritating-Good & thus I have "wiggle room"..////FROM JACK: Worms, snakes and hoochy-koochy dancers are all wrigglers.