So it
goes.
As
noted earlier, however, I have come to regard playing in a band as a kind of
need and entitlement. I kept my eyes and
ears open and before long came fortuitously upon a teaching colleague— Jen— with
an affinity for country, rock and roll, blues, folk, and bluegrass music, a few
guitar chops, a killer, professional grade, conservatory trained voice, and a
love of red wine similar to my own. I
invited her to sit in with Patrick and I one Sunday afternoon. Things fell quickly into place. Christening the new outfit Off The Vine, we
quickly built up a songbook of country, rock and roll, and bluegrass tunes,
covers and originals, stuff pulled from previous bands, and stuff put together
in this incarnation. We play gigs at bars and coffeehouses around
Chicago, and have returned to my friend Johnse’s basement to record an album’s
worth of material so far. Off The Vine
is a very different ensemble than The Hacksaw Three—more tightly focused
stylistically and sonically, with everyone’s role more clear and specific: Jen
mostly sings and also provides a bit of background strumming, I play the bulk
of the guitar parts (several kinds including some mando once in a while)
including all the leads, and Patrick is the 1-man rhythm section on bass. Patrick and I sing backup and take a lead
vocal verse every once in awhile, but mostly our job is to support Jen, whose
unbelievable voice is the main draw in the band. My guitar playing has grown tremendously as a
result of this focus, as has Patrick’s bass playing, and Patrick, Jen and I
have all introduced each other to some wonderful songs which Jen now sings the
hell out of.
BRANCHING
OUT
Off the Vine chugs along, I keep a guitar and a mandolin in my classroom to use with my
3rd graders, I continue to purchase music, play it at home
constantly, and spend hours every week listening intimately as I walk for
exercise, and I also continue to sit in on song circles of varying stripes, all
of which make me very happy. I have come
to terms with the Great Gift of my parents and grandfather.
A couple of summers ago,
with great ambivalence, I also joined Facebook (apparently I was the only person on Earth who had not done so), but while the pics people post of their kids every hour on the hour are cute, and reconnecting with some souls otherwise lost to me has been nice, I really do not find myself
motivated to broadcast much in the way of my own family’s triumphs or
tragedies. As I joined the FB stream, I was,
however, moved at various points to post musings on various musical stimuli, and
found that I couldn’t resist replying to almost any musical tidbit that floated
through my news feed, and thus I came to the realization that what I really
wanted to do was have a place to publicly ramble on about music. And so, in addition to all of my playing and
listening, I have started walknroll— this humble music blog. Mark (my writer friend and songwriting
partner) says that really what I’m doing is writing a book with these postings,
and who knows? Maybe so. In any case, sharing my
musings, as it were, has been really fun and satisfying, and I have been surprised and gratified to realize that people actually read the
thing. Each week, a few comments on
whatever I share come floating back, and they are invariably thoughtful,
thought provoking, enlightening, funny, and / or touching.
Also as noted in passing here in this
rambling musical autobiography and in some of my other postings, I have
discovered in the last couple of years that sitting in on a song circle— a group of folk, bluegrass, country, or especially
for me, rock and roll musicians sharing an informal musical experience on
musical common ground for no other audience than themselves, usually in
someone’s living room or around a campfire— can
be a transcendent experience. I have
also learned, happily, that it also serves as a kind of exercise in musician
networking. After sitting in on a circle
at my old friend and bandmate Banjo Mike’s house one night playing rock and
roll standards last winter, one of the guys (also named Michael, funny enough)
stopped me as we headed out to our cars at the end of the evening. He explained that he had a standing gig at
Phyllis’ Musical Inn— a venerable Chicago music bar in Bucktown / Wicker Park— on
Tuesday nights, and invited me to stop in and join him if I was ever free on a
Tuesday night. I thanked him for the
invite, truly flattered that I had presented in the Circle with enough musical
game to spark his interest, but drove home without giving the matter much
thought beyond that. My hectic life
continued, with lots on my plate at work, my son’s ballgames, my daughter’s
dance competitions, Off the Vine band practices, blog postings, etc etc
etc. A couple of months later, however,
Michael emailed me, saying that his regular Tuesday guitar player was not able
to be regular anymore, and wondering if I could step in at least
sometimes. I couldn’t resist. He sent me some sound files and song sheets
with chords and lyrics of stuff ranging from bluesy originals to 60s R and B
classics to rock and roll standards right in my wheel house, asked me for a few
song ideas (predictably, I offered the Stones “Sweet Virginia” and Lowell George’s “Willin’” to start
with) and I trooped down to Phyllis’s.
It was a blast. The bar is usually nearly empty, and,
although Tuesdays are nominally the open-mic night there with Michael as the
“host,” usually somewhere between no one and 2 people show up to play the open
mic, and so we just play most of the evening.
It’s music for its own joyful sake.
Michael has recruited a super singer, and some other great players who
rotate in and out (the "regular" guitarist has a ferocious blend
of rock, blues, and jazz chops that’s wonderful to groove with), and I’ve had a chance to play some electric
guitar, which I haven’t done in a band setting since my heavy metal days in
high school, and also some electric bass, which has been much more fun than I
can possibly express— a whole new way of looking at, conversing with, and
contributing to a musical situation and a whole new set of responsibilities and
options. The cast of players
has welcomed me warmly, and so I am turning over yet more new musical leaves
even at this late date. Indeed, the
latest leaf, prompted by my electric bass explorations on Tuesday evenings, is
a stand-up bass: for the holidays this past December, my wife set up a trial
rental of an acoustic bass fiddle which I have taken to with quick joy (why
have I been playing guitar all these years?!).
I’ve established some basic proficiency already, and look forward to
adding this to the Tuesday night mix over the next few weeks. Please
come on down to Phyllis’ one Tuesday evening and check us out.
I am not a professional musician, though I
think maybe I could have been. I do
regret never having given myself the chance to pursue some kind of musical
career— even entering graduate school in elementary education, it somehow
didn’t occur to me until after I was well into my course- and field-work that I
could have pursued a graduate degree in music education, which seemed like a pretty
fucking stupid oversight when I realized it.
To
live a life in which the whole point of your day is to get to the stage and
play for an hour or even 2… that’s the one thing I wish I had done in this life
that I haven’t. But in some ways, the
fact that music has never been my job, never been a business proposition for me
has also been a blessing: I’ve never had
to rely on it to feed, house, or support myself or my family. Music has only ever made me happy, more
fulfilled. It has never, ever let me
down, and I can always count on it to get me through the toughest moments. It doesn’t cause me stress, it relieves it. It is a source of pure joy in my life, and to
my bandmates Holly, Patrick and Jen, to Johnse who records me and my cohorts,
to Michael who has invited me in to his Tuesday night thing, to Banjo Mike and
his wife Irene and our friend Carol who invited me in to their family band, to
Brook for showing me all the possibilities in music, to the Stones, Steve
Earle, the Nature’s Table, and everyone else who has ever played me a record,
taken me to a show, held a musical conversation, sat in a circle, put my band
on a bill at the bar or coffeehouse, listened to me hacking and yowling,
endured my desk tapping, read my blog postings…
I am grateful to all of you beyond words. But most of all, I am grateful to my parents
and my Grandpa Sam, who have bestowed this priceless, enormous gift upon
me.
CODA:
THE REST OF THE GANG
The
gift of my parents and grandfather, of course, has touched the lives of many
people—not the least of which are the thousands of students they have taught
over the years. But other members of my
family are also part of our great musical river. My sister has continued the family’s violin
tradition, teaching and gigging around Baltimore, and holding down a steady
chair in the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. Her husband, Trent, plays in the
Army’s prominent Herald Trumpets (frequently turning up in Super Bowl halftime
shows and TV network New Year’s Eve broadcasts) and also plays in and is the
historian for the Army’s Jazz Band. My
uncle Ron has had a career as a violist in Army’s prestigious White House
Strolling Strings, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the Metropolitan
Opera in New York City. His wife— my Aunt
Judy— as I noted served as the Artistic and Executive Director of Carnegie Hall
from 1986 until her death in 1999, following a stint as an administrator for
the Cincinnati Symphony— roles in which she sought to bring the finest
classical music not only to the traditional well-heeled clientele of high end
concert halls but also to people in small towns and school children of much more
modest means and backgrounds. Ron and Judy’s son Eddie is a gigging cello
soloist and chamber musician operating out of New York, but performing
regularly all over the country. Growing
up with my father and uncle in Sam’s studio, their cousins Sheldon and Bob
moved to California and have had long careers playing on movie soundtracks and
on records by many of my favorite artists (I got a big thrill when I spotted
Sheldon’s name on a Tom Waits album).
My
daughter Alex, has taken piano lessons from my mom since she was six. Her first love is dancing, but she plays
quite nicely— indeed, her playing can be breathtaking when she puts in the
time— and, most satisfyingly, she has become a consumer of music. Like myself, she listens constantly (“Alex,
take your headphones off—I’m trying to talk to you!”), actively pursues new
sounds, makes connections between things she hears, and appreciates a wide
array of styles— from the roots traditions that her Old Man is steeped in to
the newer pop stylings of Adele and Mumford and Sons to the dance grooves and
Lorde to the classical greats her grandparents have passed on to her and
beyond. We don’t know yet exactly what
lies ahead on her musical path, but she has received our Family Gift and is a
worthy heir to our musical heritage.
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