As I know I’ve already mentioned, since I turned 70 this past April, I’ve decided to stop worrying about repeating myself. So here I go again. Asking me to name my favorite music, or favorite composer, or favorite performer is something of a waste of time, as I tend to be most in love with whatever/whomever I’ve just been listening to. Besides, at this point of my life, I rarely listen to music just for pleasure. Rather, I’m typically listening to the music I’m writing about or preparing to lecture about. However, there is an exception to this work-related listening – when I actually listen to music for the sheer pleasure of it – and that’s when I’m in my car. Consequently, if someone really wants to know what I’ve been listening to by choice – and by extension, what music is currently giving me the most pleasure – I merely need to be asked what’s in the CD player of my 2017 Toyota Highlander/Dadmobile. Answer: 99% of the time, it’s jazz piano. And for the last 18 months (or so), it’s been almost exclusively albums featuring Bill Evans (1929-1980) playing solo, or with the guitarist Jim Hall […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Author Archive for Robert Greenberg – Page 2
Indispensability The title of this blog – “An Indispensable Person” – might be considered controversial. That’s because any number of very smart people would argue that there is, in fact, so such thing as an “indispensable person.” According to both Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt: “There is no indispensable man.” Said President John F. Kennedy: “Nobody’s indispensable.” Observed the redoubtable Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970): “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.” And there we have it: there is a school of thought that states without equivocation that “No one, absolutely no one, no matter how anyone has painted someone’s existence or value, is indispensable.” It’s a school of thought that I do not attend. That’s because based on my reading of history, there are indeed certain individuals without whom certain positive historical ends could not have been achieved. Here are four obvious examples. James Thomas Flexner entitled his superb biography of George Washington The Indispensable Man (Plume, 1974; currently published by Back Bay Books). Flexner was correct in so titling his book, because George Washington (1732-1799) was, in fact, an indispensable person. Without his leadership and indomitable will, the American Revolution would have quickly unraveled and been lost. […]
Continue ReadingYesterday’s Music History Monday post marked the birth on July 8, 1935, of the American Grammy and Emmy Award-winning pop singer, actor, and comedian Steve Lawrence. Maestro Lawrence’s birth name was Sidney Liebowitz, which I used as a point of departure for an extended riff on American Jewish musicians/entertainers who changed their named in order to “blend in” to what was, during the first half of the twentieth century, the predominantly white, Protestant, Anglo-American culture. During the course of researching and writing yesterday’s blog, I watched a bunch of Steve Lawrence videos. In some, he appeared solo. In others, he appeared with his wife and performing partner, Eydie Gormé (1928-2013). In still others, he appeared with his best pal, Sammy Davis Jr. I watched Steve Lawrence perform and be interviewed on his friend Johnny Carson’s Show (on which he appeared many times) and the Ed Sullivan Show (ditto). In fact, I spent an entire afternoon watching Steve Lawrence videos. It was an altogether shocking pleasure, one that evoked from me applause (is there anything more stupid, really, than applauding a YouTube video?), laughter, a few tears, and the most acute nostalgia: I hadn’t realized – or at least I hadn’t remembered – […]
Continue ReadingWe mark the birth on July 8, 1935 – 89 years ago today – of the American Grammy and Emmy Award-winning singer, actor, and comedian Steve Lawrence, in Brooklyn, New York. He died just four months ago, on March 7, 2024, in Los Angeles. Steve Lawrence, one might ask? Have potential topics for Music History Monday become so depleted that after nearly eight years (my first such blog was posted on September 9, 2016) I’ve been reduced to profiling baritone-voiced male pop singers of the second half of the twentieth century? Who’s next: Dean Martin? Perry Como? Andy Williams? Tom Jones? Jack Jones? Vic Damone? Al Martino? Robert Goulet? And what of it, I would rather AGGRESSIVELY ASK IN RESPONSE? Over the years, I’ve profiled the likes of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Tony Bennett, Otis Redding, and Chubby Checker, among others. SO WHY NOT STEVE LAWRENCE? Okay, I will admit that there is an ulterior motive here, and we’ll get to that ulterior motive behind this profile of Maestro Lawrence in due time. But first, permit me, please, to reminisce. “Fitting In” As I have mentioned more than once, I was born and spent my first years in […]
Continue ReadingLast week’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post dealt with the 1970s, the phenomenon that was disco, and the movie Saturday Night Fever of 1977. Likewise, yesterday’s Music History Monday post also dealt with the 1970s: the invention of the Walkman in 1979. As such, I’ve decided to stick with the 1970s in today’s Dr. Bob Prescribes as well, with music that – like disco – also reflects something of its time. However, rather than focus on the frivolous escapism that was disco culture, today’s post will feature music that mirrors some of the most profound issues of its time. The 1970s I will be among the first to admit that attempts to generalize/characterize the events and spirit of a given decade – the 1950s; the 1960s; the 1970s; etc. – is a fool’s errand. So color me a fool. Like music history periodization (Renaissance; Baroque era, Classical era, Romantic era, and so forth), attempting to relate the events of a numerical decade as if they represent some sort of unified whole can be an exercise in random. I mean, honestly, can we really draw a historical line between the years 1969 and 1970? Of course not. But discussing events that occurred during a given […]
Continue ReadingWe mark the introduction on July 1, 1979 – 45 years ago today – of the Sony Walkman. The Walkman was the first entirely portable, high-fidelity (or at least fairly high-fidelity) audio cassette player, a revolutionary device that allowed a user to listen to entire albums anywhere, anytime. Introduced initially in Japan, the higher-ups at Sony expected to sell 5000 units a month for the first six months after its release. Instead, they sold 30,000 units in the first month alone and then – then – sales exploded. All told, Sony has sold over 400 million Walkmen (“Walkmans”?) in cassette, CD, mini-disc, and digital file versions, and Sony remained the market leader among portable music players until the introduction of Apple’s iPod on October 23, 2001. For Sony the Walkman was a commercial triumph. For consumers, it was a technological game-changer. But for humanity, taken as widely as we please, it can (and will!) be argued that the “portable music player” – or PMP – has been an unmitigated disaster, a tragedy that has served to increasingly isolate human beings from one another in a manner unique in our history. Headphones and Earbuds Growing up, my maternal grandparents lived in a pre-War apartment […]
Continue ReadingOn June 24, 1374 – 650 years ago today – the men, women, and children of the Rhineland city of Aachen began to dash out of their houses and into the streets, where – inexplicably, compulsively, and uncontrollably – they began to twist and twirl, jump and shake, writhe and twitch until they dropped from exhaustion or, in some cases, just plain dropped dead. It was a real-life disco inferno, true boogie-fever stuff: the first (but not the last) major occurrence of what would come to be known as the “dancing plague (or mania)” or “choreomania,” which soon enough spread across Europe. There had been small outbreaks of the “dancing plague” before, going back as far as the seventh century. An outbreak in the thirteenth century – in 1237 – saw a group of children jump and dance all the way from Erfurt to Arnstadt in what today is central Germany, a distance of some 13 miles. It was an event that is believed to have inspired the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. But the outbreak in Aachen 650 years ago today was big. Before it was over, thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children had taken […]
Continue ReadingWe began our examination of Tristan und Isolde in last week’s Dr. Bob Prescribes post. Our prescribed performance – as featured above – will continue to supply our video examples as we move through Acts II and III. As mentioned in last week’s post, our examination of Tristan und Isolde is focusing on Isolde, and three particular episodes – one from each of the three acts – that demonstrate her ongoing metamorphosis across the span of the drama: from viciously angry and depressed in Act I, to agitated and love struck in Act II, to transfigured in Act III. Act II Wagner’s stage instructions set the scene: A garden with tall trees in front of Isolde’s apartment with steps at one side. A pleasant summer’s night. At the open door is placed a burning torch. Sounds of hunting. Brangäne, on the steps to the apartments, looks out after the hunting party as their sounds fade away into the distance. Isolde comes out of the apartment in wild agitation.” Act II consists of three continuous scenes. Scene one is a dialogue between Isolde and her maid, Brangäne. Scene two is dominated by the conversation (which I’ve italicized because it’s some conversation!) […]
Continue ReadingWe mark the death on June 17, 2014 – an even 10 years ago today – of the Grammy Award winning American record producer and Director of Columbia Masterworks Recordings John Taylor McClure. McClure was born in Rahway, New Jersey on June 28, 1929, and died in Belmont Vermont at the age of 84, 11 days short of his 85th birthday. Record Producers The title of this post says it all: “Unsung Heroes.” It is my experience that unless someone has personally been involved in creating a recording, it’s pretty much impossible to appreciate the amount of work a producer puts into the process and the degree to which the producers’ own musical taste, musical proclivities, and musicality influence the final product. The front of a record jacket or CD case might bear the image of a composer or performer, and the producer’s name might appear in the tiniest of print on the lower left-hand corner of the back of the jacket, but in fact – in terms of their singular impact on a recording – the producer should, by all rights, be pictured on the front of the album side-by-side with whomever else the producer deems worthy of joining […]
Continue ReadingSooner Than Later My Dr. Bob Prescribes post for May 14, 2024 (four weeks ago) was entitled “Fluids of Choice and Drinking Songs.” Among the featured “drinking songs” was the famous “quaff the presumed poison” scene from Act I of Tristan und Isolde. That May 14 post offered a video link to the scene, from a performance recorded live at La Scala in Milan in 2007. Featuring Waltraud Meier as Isolde and Ian Story as Tristan, and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, it is hands down my favorite recording of the opera on DVD. I promised to feature the performance in a post of its own “sooner than later.” I trust today is soon enough. Today’s double-length Dr. Bob Prescribes post will deal with Act I of Tristan und Isolde. Next week’s Dr. Bob Prescribes will pick up from there, with Acts II and III. Write What You Know: Tristan und Isolde as Autobiography The aspiring writer is advised to “write what you know.” What Richard Wagner (1813-1883) “knew” during the late 1850s was an unquenchable passion for the wife of his benefactor. That benefactor was a wealthy businessman named Otto von Wesendonck; his wife (and the object of […]
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