Daily Blague

Another "meme." I'm wondering why these chain questionnaires are named after the interesting word (invented by Richard Dawkins) that denotes the essence of an idea. But we'll let that pass. I just did one of these last week, thanks to Booklust. This time, it's Mezzogregory of Counter.Point 2.0. It's about music.

Total volume of music on your computer? So far as I know, zero. Nada. I will doubtless come to mark my transition from middle-aged boomer to genuinely old man as the moment that I realized that I had no desire to own an iPod. None whatever. As it happens, today's personal music devices are so constructed that you cannot hear the quiet passages of classical music while walking on Manhattan's sidewalks. My taste is not limited to classical music, but it's centered on it, so that's a problem. Suddenly I realized that my passion for carrying a Walkman had vanished. I made a lot of MiniDiscs, and I still think that they're the way to go, but I no longer play them much. I listen to a great deal less music than I used to, largely because I'm writing so much more, and when I'm writing, I'm straining to hear a different kind of music.

There is no reason on earth for me to listen to music via my computer. If I hear something really catchy, such as the "Numa Numa" song, I order a copy from Amazon. 

The Last CD you bought? According to Tower Records, I have three CDs on order. Two are rather aged recordings of operas. I used to have the Konwitschny recording of Tannhäuser on LP; it was the first Wagner opera that I got to know. I never owned the Schippers recording of Ernani, and would be much happier with the Muti recording, but that's no longer available. I'm also expected a recent album by Christine McVie, always my favorite Fleetwood Mac.
The last CDs that I bought in the store were by the Amadeus Quartet (Mozart's quintets), The Lindsays (Beethoven's Op. 18 No. 6 and the very underplayed Quintet, Op. 29), and Music from Marlboro (the Schubert quintet, which unlike all the other calls for two cellos, and only one viola).

Song Currently Playing? See above: nothing is playing. But there's a Jean Sablon disc in the Sony Dream Machine next to the printer. The Dream Machine is one of the dumbest things I ever bought, but I fell in love with it in a Chicago hotel room and had to have my very own. I play things on it to feel young; compared with all the sophisticated speakers in this apartment (not that sophisticated, really), it sounds like a transistor radio. 

Now for the hard part: Five songs that I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me. It is almost impossible not to throw up my hands. I shall take the question very literally and answer in terms of the American Song Book.

1. Stardust. The recording of choice is an instrumental by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, recorded at the very first college jazz concert at Oberlin in 1953. Kathleen and I quite often dance to this number in the foyer. Mr Brubeck and saxophonist Paul Desmond are unbelievably lyrical here, and the andante tempo is perfect.

2. Say It Isn't So. Sung by Bobby Short on Moments Like This. The title song is also very dear to me. The album stands apart from Short's other recordings because he has a lush orchestra behind him, playing arrangements by Dick Hazard. But "Say It Isn't So" captures the singer's unsurpassable command of utter heartbreak.

3. Find Me A Primitive Man. Sung by Lee Wiley. There is a lot of mystery about how I came to know Lee Wiley's voice. I thought that my late uncle gave me the record, Lee Wiley Sings George Gershwin and Cole Porter, but he would never admit to knowing who the singer was. I suspect that the recycling of gifts is at the heart of the matter. The song that I've chosen shows off Wiley's voice to perfection. It is of course a very naughty number, written by a gay composer. "I don't mean a man who belongs to a club but a man who has a club that belongs to him." But Wiley makes it a very creditable woman's plaint.

4. Dancing in the Dark. Sung by (a) Diana Krall, over Claus Ogerman's fabulous chart, on The Look of Love, and (b), as "Le Bal des adieux," by Julien Clerc, in a suspiciously similar and only slightly less fabulous arrangement by Benjamin Biday, on Studio. On our first day in Paris, whenever, Kathleen and I always assuage the jet lag with a trip to the Galeries Lafayette. Last time, in 1993, we went down to the basement and looked at CDs. Studio had just come out, and I couldn't believe it: a lineup of some of the best songs in the ASB performed by my favorite French pop star. It immediately became our "We'll always have Paris" CD.

5. April in Paris, sung by (a) Sarah Vaughan on her first LP, Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown, and (b) by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on their incomparable collaboration. Ella & Louis. And played by Count Basie on the album of the same name. Ideally, to hear all three in a row.

Five people to whom I'm passing the baton? Lordy, does it have to be five? Nobody picked up my "Black Star" batons - probably because I didn't write to notify them of their good luck. This time, I'll just hand them out to the first five people who ask.