DEJA’ VU MOMENTS: driving us musically!

DEJA’ VU MOMENTS

C. S. Lewis writes in ‘Surprised By Joy’, of those Devine, delicious vignettes of insight in which we feel an intense, ecstatic joy, only to have them disappear before we can define or discern; yet we forever yearn to recapture, save and savor.  The peace received in those moments of elation may spark a lifetime.

This relates to musical performances and improvisational moments,

for contained in one of those deja’ vu moments might be a virus that drives the force of our musical quest.  We remember the elation after a certain solo, --our sound on a day when we had the ‘perfect reed’, --the reaction to a concert we’d performed.  We want to recapture the ecstasy of those vignettes!

‘listening to John Coltrane on ‘Love Supreme’, what other grail could it be than such an illusive moment?  And speaking of the ‘Love Supreme’ recording, I believe it captures the perfect example of improvisation that is fleeting but perpetual, finding the ‘high priest’ making the pilgrimage to hajj, questing his closest moment with God.

I must relate now my own déjà vu moment, which may have driven me all through my life.

I started a band in 7^th grade

(circa 1955), of a very hip instrumentation: accordion, piano, drums, and myself, playing alto sax and clarinet.  Our first performances were as entertainments for Moose lodges, American Legions, Junior High proms, etc., before moving on to TV talent shows.  I did the arrangements (by simply transposing the sheet music to the instruments needed), and my ear was always listening to what I wrote.

In the Fall of 1955, a time right before ‘Rock Around The Clock’ and after ‘Shake, Rattle, and Roll’, a big hit for Boyd Bennett leaped onto the charts: ‘Seventeen’!  As I remember it now, the changes were traditional: First bar A6, the second D7 (the C Natural there contained).

My little band was scheduled to play on a local talent TV show, Rising Stars, on a Thursday in November, and I wanted to present the ‘leading edge’ of material:

SEVENTEEN!!! 

We practiced in the afternoon before going to the studio (the Belle Stone grade school had excused my group, of David Mariol, Chad Davis, Jim Huff and myself on those televised days, for if we did well, it was great publicity for the school).

As we practiced ‘Seventeen’ (my key being A major), at the beginning of the 2^nd measure, where the written was:  AAA-AAA-(for 2 bars), I suddenly heard: AAA-‘_­C’AA!  This C natural into an A major piece was my first adventure into improvisation, a ‘Blues’ note: To this day I remember the exhilaration at finding that fine, clear, unique note in that spot, a space that was now my own personal promulgation, done right there by me on the spot---invented! 

Well, cloud 9 was my liar all the way to the studio and the Rising Stars Show.

I anticipated playing that glorious C natural in that unexpected spot.  And, by God, one hour or so later, on TV, I actually DID IT!!!

That joy and excitement still remain with me.

Of course there were many other motivating times in my life.  However, this is the first I recall, which propelled me to my lifelong musical quest.

Oh yes!!!: In these moments, God clearly reveals His calm elation toward our humble efforts, and bestows His soothing, caressing help and care, which is our underlying reason for the pilgrimage.

Thank you for your reading and your interest.

Keep open to those déjà vu moments!

Sincerely, and God Bless,

Errol Weiss Schlabach

Please give me feedback and comments.

Savor Ben Stein's message and disclose your hidden emotions with me.

It's a hard truth but nonetheless true.

Please read this essay by Ben Stein; I believe this is a very important, candid declaration.

"In God we trust"

-----

The  following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS  Sunday  Morning  Commentary.

My confession:

I don't like getting pushed around for being a  Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for  being Christians.  I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.  I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country.  I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat...

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we  should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God  as we understand Him?  I guess that's a sign that I'm  getting old, too.  But there are a lot of us who are  wondering where these celebrities came from and where the   America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we  send to one another for a laugh, this is a little  different:  This is not intended to be a joke; it's not  funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

In  light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings,  etc..  I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she  was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she  didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then  someone said you better not read the Bible in school...   The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and  love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said  OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our  children when they misbehave, because their little personalities  would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr.  Spock's son committed suicide).  We said an expert should  know what he's talking about..  And we said  okay..

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have  no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it  doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and  themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard  enough, we can figure it out.  I think it has a great deal  to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is  for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to  hell.  Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but  question what the Bible says.  Funny how you can send  'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when  you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think  twice about sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and  obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public  discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward  this message, you will not send it to many on your address list  because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will  think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more  worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks  of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it... no one will know you  did.  But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit  back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards,  Honestly and  respectfully,

Ben  Stein

I’m Errol Weiss Schlabach

And I believe and endorse this message.

God Bless.

New: Etude #10: Alto Sax solo, "Journey to Belize'

This is an alto sax solo I composed some years ago for a student and has had quite successful performances.  The piano accompaniment is available and I will respond to your comments of request.  You may also peruse and just use as an unusual etude.
Enjoy.
Please give feedback and comments.
Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach

Paul Desmond writes the world's longest pun

PAUL DESMOND TRIBUTE

I write this to show my tribute and respect for Paul Desmond, a great and underrated Alto Saxophone original.  As talented as he was on Alto, he mirrored this in his facility with words, and had received his college degree in Literature.

Paul loved puns, and the worse the better.  He once said he wanted to record an album called ‘Jazz Goes to Ireland’, containing such songs as ‘Fitzhugh or No One, The Tralee Song, Mahoney a Girl in a Gilded Cage, & Lovely Hoolihan’.

In 1954 the ‘pun connoisseur’ composed probably the longest pun in history:

It concerns a boy of Italian parentage named Carbaggio, born in Germany. Feeling himself a misfit, with his dark curly hair, among all those Teutonic blonds, he tries to be even more German than the Germans.  In late adolescence he flees to Paris, where he steals one of those brass miniatures of the Eiffel Tower.  Arrested by the police, he is given a choice of going to jail or leaving the country.  He boards the first outbound ship and arrives in New York.  Thinking he would like a career in communications, he goes to the RCA building in Rockefeller Plaza, takes an elevator, and walks into the office of General Sarnoff.  Sarnoff tells him the only possible job is as a strikebreaker.  The boy takes it.  When the strike ends, he finds himself on a union blacklist.  He goes to work making sonar equipment for a company owned by a man named Harris.  After several years, his English is improved to the point where he gets a job on a radio station as a disk jockey.  His show is called Rock Time.  And he has fulfilled his destiny:

HE’S A ROUTINE TEUTON EIFFEL-LOOTIN’ SARNOFF GOON FROM HARRIS SONAR, ROCK-TIME CARBAGGIO.

(He’s a rootin’, tootin’, high falootin’, son-of-a-gun from Arizona, Ragtime Cowboy Joe.)

A final quote from Paul was on the mental condition for playing jazz:

“-With wanton heed and giddy cunning!”

Errol Weiss Schlabach – February 27, 2011

Stephane Grappelli's thought on Improvising

IMPROVISATION

Improvisation, it is a mystery:

You can write a book about it,

But by the end no one will know what it is.

When I improvise and am in good form,

I am as one half sleeping;

I even forget there are people before of me.

Great improvisers are like Priests:

They are thinking only of their Gods,

From a thought by Stephane Grappelli

Please leave your comments and feedback.

Sincerely,

Errol Weiss Schlabach

Strength for anything: you have it; now kindle your will!

I recently received a letter from a writer and dear friend of mine, who had recently suffered a stroke and was suffering from Aphasia.  He told me he would write no more and had lost all confidence in himself.  This so troubled me that I had to write him of my thoughts and personal trials.  

I thought it of value to post this, for it may help some in a similar place and fate.

PLEA FOR THE kindle OF CONFIDENCE & SELF-BELIEF

In one of the Psalms, the poet advises to 'bash the heads of the babies of Babylon’, meaning to kill bad thoughts before they grow.  This is EXACTLY WHAT YOU MUST DO WITH: 

NOT BELIEVING IN YOURSELF!  

As long as one is breathing, he can trust in himself; for God gave us a resiliency to get back into the fray!  

In 2006, when I was coming out of a 4 week comma from legionnaires' disease, I could hardly breath and the thought of running again, of playing my beloved music, having enough breath to play my clarinet, of doing anything I’d loved, showing love and wit to my wife, daughter, ----all was so distant: at this time I was on Oxygen 24/7 and could not walk, literally could not sit up in bed without assistance and had to have a nurse administer the bed pan.  

But ya' know what?  I looked up that long hill and thought of Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus.  

I then yelled at myself and said I will do this and show all around that this would not defeat me; nothing was going to take away that for which I'd worked all my life.  And it took months, 2 months before I could walk, and only then with 2 hiking poles.  It was 4 months until I gathered enough courage to pick up my Clarinet and find how much I'd regressed (the findings being grim).  At 3 months I began to slow run 50 yards and then walk for a recovery for 50 more. 

But I yelled at myself again, saying: "Dammit, I will not let fate defeat me!"  

I now, at 6 years distance from that disease and hospital experience, am playing much better than I ever dreamed I would, and so much better than I played before the legionnaires' disease: The

set-back made my resolve intensify.

(Here now addressing my friend)

Now, you have the same mind and thoughts as ever, but you must use them in a new way; you may discover your 'subconscious pool' contains deeper emotions than you had previously found.

Go get a Blackwing pencil and write.

Here is a poem of mine, which I composed 3 years ago, when we had to have our beloved Brittany Spaniel, Tangy,   put down.

All my love, brother,

And get to writing!!!!!

Errol

Thank you for connecting.

Please give me feed back and comments.

Sincerely,

Errol Weiss Schlabach

New Poem: 'PRACTICE'