The Northwest Files

Bach or Bluegrass?

Choral music anytime soon? I don’t think so.

I saw a post recently that covered a talk presented to choral conductors in Maine, I think it was. It said that because of the pandemic, rehearsals and concerts would not be safe for choral singers, and I guess, by extension, for audiences, for at least two years. 

Most of my friends know, I think, that my thing is high-end choral music. Along with folk/bluegrass, I’ve participated for decades. Now, without it, I am bereft.

But I’ll have to cope because these days, working in choral groups is dangerous. Here’s why: When we sing, we breathe deeply, often sing at fortissimo, exhaling great lungfuls of air over long periods of time. It is very physical. 

We sometimes/often produce an aerosol of saliva as we sing. Sometimes more than just an aerosol. We’re in very close quarters, usually standing shoulder-to-shoulder, so in today’s reality, this is dangerous. 

Back in olden times, if one us as much as had a cold, we would sit off on the side during rehearsal, as far from the other choralists as we could get. These days, that’s not far enough. 

There is nothing - nothing at all - like being up there on stage where the music is being made. Being in the audience at a live performance is wonderful. But being on-stage, where one is surrounded and immersed in sound, is much better. Even in the worst of times, it fills one’s heart.

I sometimes become frustrated with the choral experience. Choral ensembles can be political and conductors can be huge pains in the ass. Never mind. I still miss it desperately. I’m really going to have to find something with which to occupy myself until this passes.

Maybe GarageBand? Hm. You know GarageBand, right? The recording app on iPhones and iPads? I understand that is quite popular and easy enough to use that maybe, perhaps, even I can use it.

Oh, look! There’s my iPad! Oh, look! A banjo sitting right over there in the corner of our den! 

See? This pandemic may force me to new, undiscovered, levels of antisocial activity.

“Duelin’ Banjos,” anyone?

-JFT

Quarantine

We’re approaching the end of our first week of almost total quarantine. I thought I’d list some of the ways in which we’re coping with this.

(Yes, we’re taking this seriously. I gather that some folks are not. Fine. They get sick, it’s on them. They make others sick, it’s on them. We’re not going to do that.)

I drove a car this morning for the first time since Monday, when I cruised into town for a haircut. It will be my last haircut while this is going on. By the time it’s over, I expect to resemble Sasquatch even more than I already do.

My drive this morning involved a trip to the recycle dump here where we live. I needed to get rid of four big bags of wine bottles. It’s an amazing thing. Either they reproduce out there in the recycle box on the deck or some dastardly neighbor is adding to our collection of empty bottles when we’re not looking.

I think it’s the latter. Why do I think that? I think that because the supply of full wine bottles in the rack down in the den seems never to grow.

That nearly unbearable situation will end Monday when we receive a mail-order shipment of wine that won't last long enough.

We just got a big mail-order box of food for Rio and Vivian, our two cats, who seem unperturbed by what’s going on. They’ll be happy as long as they are fed. Should we run out of food and die of starvation, they’ll be quite content, I’m sure, to take bites out of us. Starting, perhaps, with our lips. Revenge, I should think, for all the kisses they get from us.

I think that for now, at least, as long as the supply chains remain healthy, that we are not in danger of starving. We have discovered Instacart, which probably you know about. You shop online and your stuff is delivered to you in a matter of just a couple of hours. As long as you don’t ask for toilet paper.

We’ve discovered something else, too. The restaurant here where we live, which shall remain unnamed to protect the guilty, just announced that it will prepare meals for pickup or delivery.

To this news would we ordinarily exclaim, “Bah! Humbug.” The place has been that dreadful. None of the residents here use it. It stays in business because, I think, it has a captive audience in the form of those who come here for the three golf courses, the hotel, and the convention center.

But a few months ago, a new owner took over. The new owner seems to have hired a new chef and revamped the menu. We are going to give it a try tonight through the pickup-option. Laura and I are optimists, so we do not expect to be poisoned. If we are, I hope it’s not transferrable to the cats when they nibble on our remains.

Nothing at all going on in the world of music. No choir rehearsals, which along with performances, have been canceled. It’s the same everywhere here. Bend is a resort town that is filled with craft breweries and clubs that have live music. The clubs are all closed. The musicians are having a terrible time, as you might imagine. This makes me very sad, but also very happy that I did not major in music when I went to college. That’s what I set out to do. I was dissuaded. That seemed unfortunate at the time. Now I recognize it as an enormous boon, an escape from the jaws of financial death.

From financial death are we saved by the fact that we are old folks who live on a fixed income. That used to be not such a good thing. Now, with so many workplaces closed and so many people laid off, it looks like a very good thing indeed. Isn’t perspective interesting?

The snow nearly is gone from our golf courses, which means that Laura soon will resume one of her favorite pastimes – chasing a little white ball around a lawn. She’s looking forward to that, and to resuming gardening.

The lore here is that planting anything before the snow on Black Butte melts is fruitless. Literally. That will take a few more weeks. But she’ll be out on the course, celebrating golf and spring, soon.

Me, I will celebrate spring my own way. I will pick a little banjo.

If that isn’t a foolproof key to social distancing, I don’t know what is.

Stay safe and well, my friends. Talk all this seriously. You can’t afford not to. I’ll see you all when this is over.

-JFT

Prisoners

The reality of the COVID-19 mess is sinking in, isn’t it.

I went out for a haircut today. I suspect that it will be one of the last times I leave our home until this whole thing is over.

That’s difficult to contemplate. Laura and are both are of an age group that is said to be vulnerable. We need to stick close to home.

I this morning read a piece in The Lancet, the respected British medical journal, that the mortality rate for COVID-19 could run as high as 5 or 6 percent. For reference, the mortality rate for the common flu is about 0.1 percent.

So we are compelled to imprison ourselves.

We still need food. Yes, and wine.

Wine, we can mail-order. Same with food for the cats. Food for us is more difficult. A quick canvass suggests that the few stores that deliver are overwhelmed.

My guess is that very soon, stores like Fred Meyers, which does deliver, will iron the kinks out of its presently overworked system and we will be able to get deliveries.

For now, there’s lots of stuff in the freezer. There’s even more stuff stashed in the pantry. But we will run short of fresh veg, coffee, butter, and also half-and-half, soon.

That’s when I resort to my secret weapon: Whole Foods. Well, and maybe also Market of Choice. I do not think that the Whole Foods store here delivers. I’m not sure about Market of Choice.

Both are lovely stores, neither is ever as crowded as Safeway, so keeping a reasonable distance between me and an approaching COVID-19 zombie-spreader won’t be difficult.

The project that has been taking so much of our time and energy (we’re members of a board that is determined to build a center for the arts to Central Oregon) now is officially on hold. No meetings. With anyone. Phew. The intensity ratchets down a notch.

Mastersingers also is at full stop. No rehearsals, no concerts until this is done and dusted.

If nothing else, this pause in life, this time in the lovely, comfortable prison that our home is, might just bring a bit of clarity. Time to practice my banjo, if nothing else.

At least we can get wine by mail. And if getting hold of food proves difficult, hey, I could afford to lose some weight.

You gotta look at the bright side.

-JFT

Introspection

I seem to have fallen out of the habit of writing. Indeed, out of the habit of doing a lot of things. Been thinking about this a lot recently. There seem to be a couple of reasons for this.

First, Laura and I both have both been completely overtaken by a project that involves finding ways to build a center for the arts here in Central Oregon.

This thing is called the Central Oregon Center for the Arts. Laura has been spending a great deal of time on this, sometimes more than 40 hours a week. I spend a great deal of time with it as well, mostly writing and assembling materials for use on the COCA brochure, web pages, press outreach, e-mailing back and forth with other board members, and more. Yes, we both are on the board of directors. COCA pretty much occupies our dinner conversation every night. Yes, every night.

Second, if I’m not occupied with COCA, I am following the political and election news as we careen toward what surely will be the most important election in our lifetimes. The White House currently is occupied by a lunatic, a robber baron who is empowered by other robber barons. Democracy, our right to vote, seems imperiled. So does our environment. So does our access to clean air and clean water and much more. I am determined to help change that.

COCA and politics seem to leave me little time to think about anything else.

Just as I’ve not been writing, I’ve not been playing my guitar. I’ve not been playing my banjo or mandolin. I’m not sure why, except that there seem to be more important things to think about, more important work to accomplish.

But the weather is just a few weeks away from being nice enough to start fly fishing again. Just the thought of that makes me smile.

Good banjo music also makes me smile. Lightens my mood. Duh! Guess I’d better start pickin’ again. Guess I’d better sort through my fishing gear to make sure it’s ready to go. 

Doing so might even make enough room in my feeble brain to contribute to this blog more frequently than I’ve been doing. We’ll see.

-JFT

Anthems of Anger

I just watched a You Tube clip that showed Graham Nash telling an interviewer how he, David Crosby, Steven Stills, and Neil Young, the members of CSNY, came to record their song, “Ohio.”

You will remember that it came right after the National Guard shot and killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio. They were Alison Krauss, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder.

The date was May 4, 1970.

Our own National Guard troops opened fire on a group of unarmed students. All of them were about 19. A few had thrown rocks. All had hurled imprecations.

Imprecations and stones against live rounds and the fury of Richard Nixon’s “tin soldiers,” as Neil Young’s lyric has it.

The power of this song was, I think, one of the things that unified resistance against Nixon, a thug and a scoundrel.

“Tin soldiers and Nixon comin’, we’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drummin’; four dead in Ohio.” That’s the opening verse.

The tune as a whole, with Stills’ guitar, Young’s vocals, the minor key and dirge-like tempo, and the harmony of that much beloved band. Moving stuff. I felt compelled to fire up the stereo system and once again listen to that song, which Young wrote in about 90 minutes, and which the band recorded, start to finish, in another 90 minutes. I turned it up loud.

It made me angry all over again. It grabbed me by the lapels and shook me. Just as it did back in 1970.

This is the power of music, the power of what happens when four musical geniuses, cranky and argumentative though they may have been, sit down with anger and a common purpose.

So, here’s what I want to know: Where is our Anthem of Anger for today? Where are the members of CSNY when we need them? Where is the music that will bring tears to our eyes, boiling anger to our hearts, and fierce resolve to march and resist until change comes?

Where is the 1970-like unity of young people who have had enough of the Trump* cult’s ridiculous charade, of the threat to their common future that Trump* and his thugs represent?

CSNY has broken apart. Expecting those worthies to step once again into the breach may be an expectation too far. But if not them, who?

Who has both the integrity and the audience to come up with an Anthem of Anger for today?

And upon which of Trumps*’ crimes can it be based?

Loss of food stamps for the poor? Children in cages? Use of international politics to enhance his election bid? The rape and pillage of our public lands? The rise of the Nazi Right? Or are none of these as blatantly ugly as the murder, by our own troops, of four American college students?

What will it take? Will it take the murder of more of our own students by our own people?

What will it take? Tell me. I need to know. Because I’m as angry as hell and am totally fed up with this shit. I badly need to see a way forward.

-JFT

Song Camp

I wrote some time ago about attending the Americana Song Academy, known around these parts as “song camp.” Done under the auspices of the Sisters Folk Festival and immediately preceding it, this was a three-day submersion into folk music and songwriting. It featured workshops taught by many of the artists scheduled to perform at the festival.

It was a whole lot of fun. I learned stuff. Not enough stuff, probably, but some stuff.

All this comes to mind because last week the SFF folks sent around a couple of photographs taken at song camp. I thought I’d share them here.

This first one shows performers leading the morning sing, held every day. It was a great way to begin the day filled with music and joy. This was not some haphazard jam. These musicians knew exactly what they were doing. The result was magic. The song was “Jolene,” the best take of that country classic that I’ve ever heard.

This second photo shows all 200 or so of us, teaches, staff, the kitchen folks who fed us so well, and all 160 of we students. That’s me there in the middle of the back row.

Will I go again? Almost certainly. How could I not?

-JFT

How to Make Music

I spent Tuesday through Friday a couple of weeks ago at a retreat called the Americana Song Academy at an isolated retreat called Caldera, up above Sisters, a small town about 15 miles west of us here in Central Oregon. The camp sits aside Blue Lake, way out in the woods in the Cascade Mountains. No cell service, very little Wi-Fi.

This probably was just as well. There was nothing upon which to focus except music. That, after all, is why we all were there.

The schedule kept us busy from breakfast until 11 pm or so. Every morning started off with breakfast, then a group sing. This really set the tone – for not just that day, but for the whole experience. Everyone there was an accomplished musician (well, except for me), and the leaders of the sings were especially talented. All three mornings, the experience was so moving that it was hard to find someone who didn’t have tears of joy and comfort. I wanted to hug everyone I could see. Evenings consisted of open-mic sessions in which students presented their work.

The emphasis was on learning. Song camp offered a plethora of workshops, with time for two each morning, two each afternoon, with the added prospect of mentoring sessions. All of the above were conducted by a selection of the artists scheduled to perform at the Sisters Folk Festival, which took place immediately following song camp.

This was precisely where I ran into trouble.

I had not realized that the whole point of this thing was writing songs, as there isn’t a lot of promotion for this camp, and not a lot of advance information. I’d thought, hoped, it was tuned toward general folk musicianship. It wasn’t.

I didn’t go there to write a song, but that’s what we were expected to do. As a matter of self-defense, I roughed out a silly little talking blues because I was obliged to come up with something. I mean, that counts as a song, doesn’t it?

This was where I ran into trouble. The emphasis, especially from the women instructors, was to dig into your sensitive, vulnerable side. Well, that ain’t me. Maybe you know the stuff I like – hobos, rakes and ramblers, miner- ‘49ers, bad actors like Wild Bill Jones. None of these performers had that territory staked out, but a duo called Pharis and Jason Romeo came closest.

The cool thing was that when you attend song camp, you get to know these artists. They are amazing people, impressive people. You’re in their classes and you’re eating three meals a day with them.

Here are some names: Martyn Joseph, here for song camp and the folk festival from Wales. He is easily the most powerful solo performer I’ve ever seen. Sensitive, interesting, angry as hell, gets huge, monstrous tone out of his Louden guitar. Took a workshop from him. It was by far the best of the bunch. If you can find it, listen to his song, Here Come the Young.

Also: John Smith. He’s a pixie-like gray-haired and -bearded gnome from Wisconsin, fabulous writer with a wonderful voice; if you can find it, listen to his song, Medicine.

Also: Keith Greeninger, from Santa Cruz, Calif., who writes killer protest songs.

Also: Pharis and Jason Romero, from Horsefly, British Columbia. They reminded me of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings but better, and they did wonderful stuff that was exactly the kind of folk music I was dying to see. I took a mentoring session from Jason, one fine banjoist. He showed me some things I should have known. Yes, of course I brought a banjo along. A guitar, too.

This camp was far more political than I ever could have imagined. Everybody – I mean everybody – hated our country’s current political situation. That was the subtext of the experience. If they weren’t talking about the music, they were talking politics. I mean instructors and students (all 160 of us) alike.

Sadly, it had to end. The end came with an emotional closing ceremony. After the morning sing on Friday, we all clustered in a circle in the forest around John Smith, who sang a moving little song. Again, tears everywhere, so great was the affirmation.

It was affirmational for the instructors too, many of them said, and even more-so the folk festival that followed. Gas in their tanks, they said.

At the end of the ceremony, everyone was invited to remove a stone from a pile of river stones that had been built in the center of our circle. Take your stone home, we were told, put it in your guitar case as a memento of the experience. I have mine right here.

This was not cheap to do, but what an incredible experience. Probably I will do it again. I’m determined to have two songs, at least, to take with me next year. That’s important because song camp offers at least three open-mic nights and afternoons, and that’s where you’re supposed to present your work. If you go do this and come away with nothing, what’s the point?

I went there hoping to return with my tank filled with enthusiasm for music. I don’t know if that worked. I think time will tell. But was a hell of an experience. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around that much art and music. The Central Oregon Mastersingers, a choral ensemble with which I sing, seems dry and academic by comparison. It is interesting in its own way and very challenging, but nowhere near as much fun as song camp.

But let us back up a bit: One of my problems with this experience was the vulnerability stressed by several of the instructors. That’s a hard place for me to go. It’s hard to find the freedom and openness that allows such vulnerability.

I survived boarding school. Vulnerable people do not survive boarding school. Or, really, pretty much anything else. So it’s difficult to shrug off the shell that we form to make it through school and professional adulthood. So how is it that the morning sing always ended with my eyes wet?

The “song” I wrote, a true tale of something going on in our back yard in the form of a talkin’ blues like Woody Guthrie might have performed, is a result of that. Kind of an anti-song, at least in the vulnerability department. It is, I suppose, kind of a rebellion against what we were asked to do. I think now that that was a stupid mistake, but it was all I knew to do.

I’ll perform it at song camp next year, if I go.

No, wait. I’ll perform it next year at song camp.

-JFT

Relighting the Fires

Tomorrow is the beginning of an adventure. It’s the day I sign in for an intensive, three-day residential folk-music retreat called the Americana Song Academy.

I’m doing this because to my great despair, I seem to have fallen out of love with playing music. There was a time when I played every day. These days, rarely do I pick up an instrument. I badly miss it, but somehow, it’s just not calling my name.

But now I’ll have no choice but to play, thanks to this program up in the mountains near Suttle Lake, just outside of Sisters, Oregon. It consists of early-morning to late-night classes, lessons, jams, performances, and more. Laura thinks that this is just what I need, that the experience will help me snap out of these doldrums and find some musical joy. I hope she's right.

And if the ASA isn’t enough, Friday through Sunday, we attend the Sisters Folk Festival, the nonprofit that sponsors and organizes the Americana Song Academy. 

I told my old pal Mike last night of my frustration with this musical silence. It seems like my instruments sit here in their stands, untouched, silently mocking me. I told him that I feel as though I’ve fallen out of love with something wonderful. I badly want to fall back in love with it. 

Mike used to be my musical co-conspirator. We’ve played together, off and on, since college. But since Laura and I fled California three years ago, I haven’t found a like-minded person to pick and sing with. Maybe someone will turn up in this coming week of music, this trial by fire.

I’ve decided to take a couple of meaningful instruments – an open-back custom Bacon-style banjo left to me by my dear old pal Hal Wright, who would be impatient with me if he knew I’ve not been playing, and a Martin guitar that I’ve owned and played for 57 years.

Songs? I’ve picked out about a half-dozen of favorites that I’ve loved for at least 50 years, old folk tunes with legs. Also, these are tunes I know how to play, even if I don’t always remember all the lyrics – my memory seems not to be what it used to be. I’m not sure I’ll need songs, but I suspect that at some point, every participant will be called upon, or at least offered the opportunity, to present a song or two. I’m trying to be ready.

So we shall see. This music has been of huge importance to me. I’ve missed it. I’m hoping that these twinned experiences help to rekindle my musical fires.

-JFT

The Day the Music Died

A very interesting music video crossed my attention today. It’s a masterful performance of a wonderful tune. I'm sure that you know it. And most likely, if you’re anywhere near my age, you long ago decoded the meaning of the lyrics. Here it is. Please turn the sound up, go full screen. You won’t regret it, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvXPz9u4Zc

But here’s the deal: As I listen to Don McLean deliver this great performance of his most famous tune, and yes, that’s a very rare Martin D-35S that he’s playing, I can’t help but think that maybe, somehow, he’d found a way not only to mirror the past, but also to glimpse into the future, especially here:

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan's spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

So please, take a moment to look and listen. You’ll enjoy this performance, I think. And I think that it might just make you think that McLean is a bit of a seer. It makes me think that. Because I’m very afraid that we in the U.S. are on the edge of seeing the music die.

-JFT

Musically

Who am I musically? And where? And does it matter? Been thinking about that lately.

I know where I am now, and I know more or less where I started. But what comes next?

(Please note, I am writing this highly introspective piece mostly for my own amusement. I promise, you will be bored to tears. So you might want to consider closing this file and returning to doing something that is actually useful, amusing and productive. If you elect to continue, don’t say you weren’t warned.)

The question I just posed is easy, the answer isn’t. My parents’ musical tastes, the stuff I heard around the house as a child, ran from longhair stuff like Prokiev’s Love of Three Oranges and Beethoven’s concerti to the Norman Luboff Choir’s cowboy songs to the Grand Ol’ Opry, complete with Bill Monroe, and later, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.

My mom had high-toned ideas. I was 8 when she started me on violin lessons with Mr. Carl Gordon. I mean, really? I was a big clumsy kid with huge hands. I still have all the sheet music study materials tucked into a binder that has not been opened in more than 60 years. Fiddle never was going to be my instrument, but I persevered until age 14, at which time I was shipped off to boarding school. My life changed completely, and for lots of reasons.

At home, I had a small radio/record player in my bedroom. I was in love with the marches of John Phillip Sousa. Had a couple of records, played them over and over.

As time moved on, I listened to radio programs featuring everything from the Eastman Wind Ensemble and the Ray Conniff Orchestra to Ira Cook’s Top 40 show on KMPC radio, 710 on your AM dial. On that show, I heard everything from “Mr. Sandman,” by The Chordettes, to “Volare,” by Dean Martin, to “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots,” by The Cheers, and so much more.

But tastes changed and, with luck, become more sharply focused. I discovered the tropical sounds of the Martin Denny Trio and the Arthur Lyman Group, both of which played music of what’s called the Tiki Culture – Polynesian music featuring piano, marimba, drums, bird calls. I still love that peaceful music and I still listen to it every once in a while.

That was a prelude to Harry Belafonte and his calypso music, which really got my attention. “Day-O, daylight come and I wan’ go home.” And so forth. Rhythmic, musical, and musically interesting. Then Belafonte’s Carnage Hall record with Miriam Makeba and the great and wonderful Odetta and her 12-string guitar. What a couple of talents, what a couple of voices! And to me, a kid growing up on a desert ranch, all of it unbelievably interesting and exotic.

Then off to boarding school in 1957. No more musical feast, no more Top 40. Once there, my dear friend, teacher and musical mentor Fred Lorenz converted me from fiddle to brass for spot in the concert band, and introduced me to choral music. The first time we sang Bach’s magnificent “Sleepers, Wake” from the chapel hymnal I was hooked.

In 1957, about the same time I went off to school, the Kingston Trio burst onto the scene. This band captured the energy and enthusiasm of all the material I’d been listening to, added banjo, guitar, bongo drums, Tiki and calypso, tossed in a wonderful dash of professionalism and choral harmonies. Again, I was hooked. I figured this bright collage of music was what I wanted to be involved in.

But then came college, where a professor told me I didn’t have what it took to be a music major. Probably he was right, probably he did me a favor, given the difficulty of earning a living in music. I’m sure that I’ve been much better off in journalism that I would have been in music.

Still, as time passed, I found Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, The Dillards, The Beatles, Gordon Lightfoot, Crosby Stills & Nash, Sam Bush, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, the Del McCoury Band, the Travelin’ McCourys, and so much more.

Add to that the ongoing presence of the music of Mozart, Haydn, Bach and Beethoven, which has been a constant through all of this. Also constant from the earliest days, a very nice guitar, a couple of banjos, and a mandolin, all of which I picked away at. Roots pushing toward the surface.

What a crazy confusion of types and styles. You’d think just one type or style would have stuck, would have asserted itself. But no.

Do you begin to understand why I’m confused, why musically I’m not sure who I am, or why?

What I do understand is that the really great music, music of almost any kind, gets my attention; but not enough of my attention to compel me to stick with any one thing.

Today, I rarely pick up a banjo, guitar or mandolin. After many years of singing semi-pro choral music in SoCal, there was a long fermata. That fermata, or pause, recently ended. I’m now singing with the Central Oregon Mastersingers and more or less enjoying that, though I do struggle a bit. That’s because that old professor was correct, I had no business studying music as a profession.

But Central Oregon is a gold mine of American folk music. It’s all around us. Laura wants me to go to a week-long music camp just prior to the Sisters Folk Festival, in September, in the hope that I can regain what little musical mojo I might have had. She thinks I should focus on just one instrument. We shall see. But probably she’s right. Usually she is.

But there’s this: I don’t have a lot of time left. I’m 75, I think my voice is starting to deteriorate, my hands are arthritic and stiff. Yet across the chasm of all those years, music still calls to me. I’m trying to figure out how best to answer. Seems like with all I’ve invested, it’s the least I can do.

-JFT