Unfortunately, after Dave left NBC for CBS, after being passed over for “The Tonight Show,” NBC withheld the rights to re-air these clips from the show’s first, funniest, edgiest ten years. Those who know Letterman only from his CBS incarnation (“The Late Show,” as opposed to “Late Night”) really don’t know Letterman. There used to be at least one gag a night that had me in tears.
PHOTO: Dave in 1986. Note the chicken, bottom right.
Here with a Loaf of Bread, beneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, an Accordion… and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
On this date in 1977, one of my favorite works by Alan Hovhaness was given its premiere by the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of André Kostelanetz.
In theory, Hovhaness, with his marked affection for the East, should have been the ideal composer to set “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” What is striking is how unconventional his approach turned out to be. Is there a less likely instrument to bring to life the hedonistic fatalism of the medieval Persian master than the accordion?
A recording of the work was issued on a Columbia LP, with Fairbanks as the narrator. To me, Fairbanks’ theatricality is a huge asset, conjuring memories of his turn as Sinbad the Sailor.
Unfortunately, to date, the performance has not been reissued on CD. Presumably the masters languish in the Sony vaults. O that they could be licensed to another label, even to be pressed-on-demand at http://www.arkivmusic.com (which has already made available Kostelanetz’s recording of “Floating World – Ukiyo”). The Bird is on the Wing!
For now, I make due with a fine performance with Michael York, the Seattle Symphony and accordionist Diane Schmidt.
An amusing anecdote: York appeared in Philadelphia a number of years back, in a touring revival of Lerner & Loewe’s “Camelot.” Following one of the performances, I walked around to the stage door, where there were a handful of people standing with memorabilia from “Cabaret” and “Logan’s Run.” Eventually, York emerged and politely signed everything, though you could tell he was a little fatigued after a long evening.
When he got to me, I handed him the CD booklet, and his eyes lit up. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “I would be DELIGHTED to sign this.”
That’s my Michael York story. Since the Fairbanks recording isn’t even posted on YouTube, here’s a link to York’s mellifluous, though more subdued reading:
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
For reasons known not even to me, I was looking over the roster for Woodstock today – yes, THAT Woodstock – and was amused to find Sha Na Na sandwiched between the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (Monday, August 18, 6 a.m.) and Jimi Hendrix (9 a.m.)
What was a fifties tribute band doing at Woodstock?
He maintained a filing cabinet filled with drawings of imaginary medieval buildings, the properties of which he would periodically put up for sale in local journals by way of anonymous ads.
He founded his own church – Église Métropolitaine d’Art de Jésus Conducteur (Metropolitan Art Church of Jesus the Conductor) – of which he was the only member, and for which he promptly composed a mass.
He only ate white food: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, veal, salt, coconuts, chicken cooked in white water, moldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (only white varieties), cotton salad (whatever that is) and certain kinds of fish.
When he died, his friends produced umbrella after umbrella after umbrella from his room.
Erik Satie (1866-1925) was an artist whose life was full of enigmas and ambiguities. He is often misclassified as an Impressionist. He was viewed by some (including Maurice Ravel) as a precursor to Debussy, even as he felt a greater affinity with the younger generation of composers who made up Les Six.
In practice, he elevated salon and cabaret music, of which he spoke slightingly. After he went back to school at mid-life in order to bone up on classical counterpoint, he stopped using bar lines in his manuscripts. He blazed trails later rediscovered by Morton Feldman and John Cage. He was a minimalist more than half a century before Minimalism.
Satie rejected the concept of musical development, believing it to be an unconscionable imposition on the public’s time. For him, brevity was the soul of wit. He could be profoundly ironic. Many of his piano pieces bear titles like “Trois Morceaux en forme de poire” (“Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear”), “Embryons desséchés” (“Desiccated Embryos”), and “Véritables préludes flasques pour un chien” (“Veritable Flabby Preludes for a Dog”).
A friend of Jean Cocteau, the two collaborated on the surrealist curio “Parade,” written for the Ballets Russes, with choreography by Léonide Massine and costumes and set design by Picasso. The scenario involves three circus acts trying to attract an audience to an indoor performance.
It was one of a number of works that were introduced in the ‘Teens that attempted to create a scandal through the incorporation of low-brow elements into what was perceived as a high-brow art form. Hoping for a strong reaction, Cocteau pushed for the inclusion of such provocative “instruments” as a typewriter, a foghorn, a siren, milk bottles, gunshots, and boots sloshing around in a wash tub. The work bore the subtitle “A Realist Ballet.” The opening night audience responded by rioting energetically.
Politically, Satie was a radical socialist, who eventually teetered over into Communism. For a time, his wardrobe consisted of seven identical grey suits. During his quasi-religious phase, he went about in a priest-like habit. Then he became a “velvet gentleman.” Finally, during his communist period, he assumed the appearance of a bourgeois functionary, never to be seen without a bowler and an umbrella.
No one would have guessed that such an impeccable dresser would have lived out his life in clutter and squalor. When Satie died, his friends, who had never been invited back to his place in 27 years, were aghast at the piles of newspapers, the unending collection of umbrellas, and most of all the stacked grand pianos, the uppermost of which had been used by the composer as a repository for papers and parcels. Among these, and in the pockets of Satie’s wardrobe, were discovered a number of manuscripts which the composer had believed long lost.
Happy birthday, Erik Satie! I will have eggs for breakfast in your honor.
“Je te veux” (“I want you”):
Selections from “Parade,” with the Picasso designs. Love the horse!
