Happy Birthday Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born April 29, 1899, in Washington D.C. One of the major figures of jazz from the 1920s until his death in 1974, Ellington composed some of the biggest hits of the era: It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing), Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady, Satin Doll, to name just a few.

In the late 20s Ellington and his musicians became the house band for the Cotton Club in Harlem and remained there until 1931. The Depression was tough for everyone, including musicians but Ellington’s band continued to perform and record. In 1939 he met Billy Strayhorn, a classically trained musician who did much to polish and codify Ellington’s compositions. They also worked on some of Ellington’s longer compositions, such as “Black, Brown, and Beige” (1943). Strayhorn composed on his own, too. His song “Take the A Train” became the Ellington band’s theme song.

After the war, the face of music changed with many solo singers such as Frank Sinatra becoming what the public wanted to hear. Smaller groups rather than the “big bands” were also more cost-effective for club owners to engage. But in July 1956 the Ellington band appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival and the reception they received revived his career. By the end of the 50s Ellington and Strayhorn began to work on film scores, the first one being “Anatomy of a Murder” (a terrific movie by Otto Preminger with Jimmy Stewart).

The 60s saw Ellington record with such legends as Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and John Coltrane. He performed all over the world and spent much time on overseas tours. In 1967 he recorded an album with Frank Sinatra called “Francis A. and Edward K.” Ironically, only one Ellington composition, “I Like the Sunrise” was used on the record. Ellington performed his last concert at Northern Illinois University on March 20, 1974. He died May 24, 1974.

A musical genius, he wasn’t so adept at personal relationships. Leaving his wife, he lived with several other women during his life. He also let it slide when songs that Strayhorn composed were attributed to Ellington. However, if we judged every musician by his morality, we’d have precious little music to listen to. For an excellent biography of Ellington, read Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout.

And now I leave you with the original 1932 recording of “It Don’t Mean a Thing” with vocalist Ivie Anderson. Enjoy!

Robinson Crusoe

Have you ever felt isolated, as though you were by yourself on a deserted island? How do you think that you’d react if you were? Who would you turn to for help?

Robinson Crusoe spent over twenty-eight years on this island, all but five of them entirely alone. He was fortunate enough to be able to bring provisions out of the shipwrecked vessel, including arms with which to shoot game to keep himself alive. He taught himself many skills such as gardening, making a canoe, and tending a flock of goats that he captured and tamed, out of sheer necessity. He further learned to grind grain and make bread, churn butter, and make cheese. But how did he sustain his mental and spiritual state?

There were a number of Bibles in various languages on the ship that he was able to salvage. Never a religious man, he began to read the scriptures and little by little he began to believe and develop a deep faith. For many of the first years he felt despair and depression, thinking often why this had happened to him and how he could possibly escape this prison. Gradually though, he began to see God’s plan and to be thankful - thankful for saving his life, thankful for leading him to provide shelter and care for himself, thankful for bringing him to a life of faith. Very much like Betsie ten Boom in The Hiding Place, he could see why God had things happen the way they did. In her case, she could be thankful for the fleas that infested the living space so that the guards would leave the prisoners alone at night and thus enable Betsie and Corrie to read the Bible and pray with the other prisoners. In Robinson Crusoe’s case he was able to understand why he survived so long, ultimately saving the life of Friday and many others who ended up in his sphere.

Daniel Defoe (c.1660 – 1731) was a writer of fiction, non-fiction, pamphlets, and poems, and he was a merchant, journalist, and spy. Indeed, his own life rivaled the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, his first novel published in 1719. Brought up as a Presbyterian dissenter (dissenters were all those who were not members of the Church of England), religion played a large role in Defoe’s life and his fictional characters often lived lives that were not saintly, but who came to repentance. Captain Jack and Moll Flanders are other examples.

What about our own deserted islands? How can we find repentance and accept – even embrace – God’s will for us in these uncertain times? Robinson Crusoe gives us marvelous advice – spend time with the Bible getting to know and love our Lord.

In Praise of the Old Testament

Some Christians don’t pay enough attention to the Old Testament. Their love of the New Testament and the words of Jesus is admirable, but they are missing out of deeper understanding of the prophecy of the Messiah and what an amazing event it was in its fulfillment.

Take Abraham for example. He was faithful to God to the point that he was ready to sacrifice his only son. He didn’t have to go through with it, but the Son of God did sacrifice Himself. In Psalm 22 David laments “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” words that Jesus would utter from the cross. In verses 16-18 David describes a scene that would happen at the Crucifixion: “…they have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones – they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.”

Again in Isaiah 53:7 we have a prefigurement of the “trial” of Jesus: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.”

Later, after the Resurrection, Jesus meets the two men on the road to Emmaus and “he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27). The scriptures, of course, at that time referred to the Old Testament. All the readings in the temple and words that Jesus taught with came from these scriptures. The whole old covenant was preparing us for the new covenant that we’d have as disciples of Jesus. 

The New Testament and Psalms are my primary daily Bible reading, but every few years I go back and read through the Old Testament. It always deepens my appreciation and understanding of the life and teachings of our Lord.

Isaiah Redux

Who doesn’t need comfort these days? Especially the Lord’s comfort. He offers this over and over in the Scriptures. God wants all good things for us. He’s always there with His arms outstretched waiting for us to turn around and see Him, to run to Him.

Things often went poorly for the Israelites. But listen to the comfort He offers to those stiff-necked, stubborn people who were their own worst enemies (Israelites = us). This is Isaiah 52:7-10.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all – individuals and nations – could accept the Lord’s peace and comfort and then offer it to one another?

American Popular Song 1

Today I’m introducing a new recurring feature called “American Popular Song.” This will be about the great composers and lyricists of the 20s – 50s, including the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, and many more. We’ll look at the lyrics as poetry and listen to the music from clips and enjoy some of the best interpreters of the songs. I confess now that a lot of them will be sung by Frank Sinatra, my favorite singer.

The song today is “Moonlight in Vermont” written by John Blackburn and Karl Suessdorf, lyrics and music respectively. Written in 1944, Margaret Whiting introduced it the same year.

Most songs of this era are in 32-bar AABA form, where A is a verse and B is the bridge, which then returns to the verse. Rhyme is a big part of the lyrics too. However, Blackburn noticed after writing the first part of the song that there was no rhyme and decided to complete it that way. What is interesting about each verse is that it is a haiku (a Japanese verse form that has three lines, the first and third with five syllables and the second with seven syllables).

Here are the lyrics followed by the Margaret Whiting recording with the Billy Butterfield orchestra.

Moonlight in Vermont

Pennies in a stream

Falling leaves, a sycamore

Moonlight in Vermont

 

Icy finger waves

Ski trails on a mountainside

Snowlight in Vermont

 

Telegraph cables, they sing down the highway

And travel each bend in the road.

People who meet in this romantic setting

Are so hypnotized by the lovely

 

Evening summer breeze

Warbling of a meadowlark

Moonlight in Vermont

 

Happy Birthday (yesterday) Miklos Rozsa

Miklos Rozsa was one of the finest movie score composers Hollywood had. Born April 18, 1907, in Hungary, he took his musical training in Germany and worked there until 1931. He moved on to France and Great Britain and came to the United States in 1940 where he stayed until his death in 1995. His career in America was successful, garnering him 17 Oscar nominations, with three wins: Spellbound in 1945, A Double Life in 1947, and Ben-Hur in 1959.

Rozsa also wrote concert music and had his music performed by conductors such as Eugene Ormandy, Bruno Walter, and Leonard Bernstein. But it was for his film scores that he is best remembered:

To Be or Not to Be

The Lost Weekend

A Song to Remember

The Naked City

Quo Vadis

Lust for Life

King of Kings

El Cid

The Green Berets

  

Not a bad line up, but that’s only some of them.  There were over 100.

One of my favorites is 1946’s The Killers with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. One of the title characters was William Conrad (radio’s Matt Dillon and tv’s Cannon). This composition is significant for a musical phrase that everybody knows, even if they’ve never seen the movie (and they should, by the way).

Listen to the first four notes and see if you can name the show that Walter Schumann used this music in. Rozsa sued and got a co-credit for the music.

Shakespeare's Sonnets: VI

Many of the sonnets in the first section carry on with the idea that having children will preserve posterity and will make us live on even after we’re gone. 

Sonnet VI

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That’s for thy self to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:

Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair

To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

 

Divine Mercy Sunday

This past Sunday – the octave of Easter – is known in the old calendar as Low Sunday (as opposed to the pageantry of the Triduum and Easter) and in the new calendar as Divine Mercy Sunday. Our Church celebrated Low Sunday as usual but also said the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy after Mass.

Saint Faustina Kowalska (25 August 1905 – 5 October 1938) was a Polish nun who had visions of Jesus, which she recorded in her diary. He stressed His Divine Mercy, available to those who would believe and trust in Him. One evening Jesus appeared to her as wearing a white robe with red and pale white rays radiating from His heart. He told her in this vision to paint the image that she saw with the words “Jesus, I trust in You” at the bottom. An artist was commissioned to produce this painting. After much work with Sister Faustina to get it exactly right, it turned out that the head and face had the same proportions as the Shroud of Turin.

The Chaplet can be prayed at any time but is most often prayed as a Novena (nine days of prayer) the nine days before the Feast of Mercy. (Some begin it on Divine Mercy Sunday and the following eight days.) The purpose is to receive great graces that our Lord wants to bestow on us – if we’ll only ask Him.

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy begins and ends with optional prayers from Sister Faustina’s diary. Then, using Rosary beads, the Chaplet begins with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Apostles’ Creed. On the first bead before each decade, pray:

Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

On each of the ten following beads, pray:

For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

This is repeated for all five decades of the Rosary. The Chaplet then concludes with:

Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

This conclusion is said three times.

In this age where it seems you can trust no one, isn’t it comforting that we know we can always trust in Jesus.

 

Heart of Darkness of Apocalypse Now

One Saturday evening a few weeks ago we watched – I should say re-watched – Apocalypse Now. This is a movie that you can only watch every few years (my husband would disagree with that) because of its intensity. It is set in Vietnam during the war. Briefly, Army Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is assigned the unenviable task of seeking out a rogue officer – Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) - entrenched somewhere in Cambodia, who is treated as a god by local native people and who has probably gone mad. Willard’s mission: terminate Kurtz’s command with extreme prejudice.

The action follows Willard and his crew along the river leading to Kurtz’s hideout. Along the way they meet with Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall) who intimidates the enemy with “The Ride of the Valkyries” blaring from his helicopter during bombing raids. During the trip along the river, Willard reads the dossier on Kurtz and begins to get inside his head. They finally make it to their destination, but not without losing all but three men. One of them is killed at the compound, leaving two to return to Viet Nam after Willard accomplishes his mission.

After the movie it occurred to me that we have the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, on which the movie is loosely based, but I had never read it. So, a few days ago I took care of that oversight. 

Although the book is set at the end of the 19th century in the Congo Free State and the movie is set during the Viet Nam war, there were remarkable consistencies. For Europeans or Americans the middle of Africa and the middle of Southeast Asia can be frightening, unfamiliar places. A trip up a river in a jungle is so unlike the world these men came from (Marlow in the book, Willard in the movie). Being in a strange environment can play havoc with everything you thought you knew. 

There are differences in the story too. Willard’s mission is to kill Kurtz and Marlow’s is to retrieve the ivory that Kurtz has amassed at the company’s station. And, there have been so many rumors as to Kurtz’s health (physical and mental) that Marlow is sent to see what shape he’s in. Near the inner station where Kurtz is, Marlow and his crew are attacked by natives on the shore shooting arrows. This scene is in the book and the movie with the same result of one of the crew being killed by a spear thrown from the riverbank.

Once Marlow gets to the station, he is met by a Russian that he calls the harlequin because his clothes are patched so much he looks like a clown. This character in the movie is a photojournalist (Dennis Hopper) who has come under the spell of the god-like Kurtz (“I tell you,” he [the Russian] cried, “this man has enlarged my mind.”)

Willard accomplishes his mission of assassinating Kurtz and Marlow accomplishes his, but also takes the fatally ill Kurtz with him on his boat. On the way back, Kurtz dies. His last words are the same in the book and the movie: “the horror… the horror.”

And what is this horror, this heart of darkness? Many things. The wilderness, the darkness of the deepest jungles, the terrible darkness of the heart of man. Imperialism in Africa and interventionism in Viet Nam are the darkness of nations against nations, the horrid treatment of man against man. For after all, man, wherever he is, cannot escape the effects of original sin, the darkness of the soul.

The Hiding Place

The word “Nazi” is bandied about these days by people who don’t really know anything about the Nazis and how they operated. Corrie ten Boom and her family most assuredly did know since quite a few members of her family were imprisoned for a time and some of them died in the concentration camps. Corrie herself would have been gassed too if it weren’t for a mistake in bookkeeping releasing her days before. Or was it a mistake?

Corrie’s family were devout Christians and this belief in God was the only thing that kept them going. Throughout their ordeal seemingly little coincidences of goodness happened, only looking back on the whole thing would make one think that God decidedly had a hand in helping them.

But didn’t only Jews die at the death camps? No. Catholics, Protestants, converted Jews, homosexuals, people who had mental or physical handicaps, and people who just weren’t Aryans suffered and died at the hands of the Gestapo. We’ve all seen pictures and video of the emaciated naked bodies piled up and bulldozed into mass graves. The treatment of the survivors wasn’t much better. Corrie and her sister were given thin gruel to eat. Their prison uniforms became filthy and tattered. Their bedding was rancid straw full of fleas. They stood at attention at roll call sometimes for hours on end. Corrie’s sister Betsie had a bad heart and finally succumbed.

Why were they in the camp in the first place? Corrie, her sister, and their father lived in an old house in Haarlem in the Netherlands and because of their faith began taking in people in trouble and helping them escape to the countryside. It didn’t matter to the ten Booms what someone’s religion was; their faith taught them to help anyone who needed it. Slowly they became members of the underground.

Because of the structure of the house, an architect friend was able to build and disguise a room where people could hide whenever the Gestapo raided the house – the hiding place. A Dutch collaborator turned them in and the ten Booms were arrested – with a few people hiding in that room who did successfully escape a few days later.

The overriding theme of the book is faith and trust, and the belief that God could turn any evil to good. Didn’t He allow His Son to be crucified and die? And look what came from that – reconciliation with God and the opening of Heaven. The ten Booms believed that no matter what happened in this life, their perseverance in their faith would lead them to final salvation. We must do the same. 

Isaiah

One of my favorite books of the Old Testament is Isaiah. He was born in the 8th century B.C. and died in the 7th century B.C. There is a legend that he was sawn in half by Manasseh, but there is no proof of this. 

There is a richness of messianic prophecy, including the four songs of the suffering servant. St. Jerome said that he was more of an evangelist than a prophet, so detailed was his prophecy of the coming of the messiah, as though it were history instead of prophecy.

Verse 9:2 says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Later in the verse are lines that probably most Christians churches relate at Christmas (9:6): “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’.” Kind of makes you want to break out into song, doesn’t it? (Handel used Isaiah for several sections of Messiah.)

Isaiah is called by God (6:8): “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, “Here am I! Send me’.” And he did as the Lord bid and he prophesied for probably over 60 years. His mission was often difficult and those he was sent to did not always listen to him. But they didn’t always listen to Jesus when he was among us either. 

In addition to reading the Acts of the Apostles in this Easter season, Isaiah is another good focus to see how his prophesies came true in the person of Christ. 

And that picture at the left? Isaiah from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. 

He Is Risen!

 

Happy Easter Monday. Have a blessed Paschal season!

Good Friday

 

There's little I can say about this day except to share with you this heartbreaking piece of music.