Dear Grandpa,
I haven’t been up to much: went to a new dentist this week because our old one stopped taking our insurance. The hygienist took 45 minutes to survey my mouth, racking up a list of potential things they could charge for: I felt like a car on the rack at a disreputable mechanics shop. You could almost hear the “ca-ching” sound of an old cash register every time she poked and prodded something. My teeth are actually fine – our old dentist just examined them.
The family’s doing well, but the world is a mess, still, I guess.
Work is good – I “take the A train” every day - not to Harlem but from (and back to) Brooklyn, which (of course) reminds me standing by your record player in the basement, listening to your jazz 78s.
Back then, I had absolutely no idea what an “A” train was. I do remember thinking (probably because I was five) that it might be the best way to get to Sesame Street, which Mom had told me was in New York City.
When I moved here, I was SO EXCITED to see those brownstones and stoops, and that my trash cans were out in front of my house just like theirs were, even if Oscar the Grouch™ wasn’t inside one of them.
I was actually 35 by that time, but still very excited.
To be honest, I’m happy about that even now.
Sometimes I listen to the Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra recording of the song on the ride to or from work. I only really remember the lyrics of the first line because Ella Fitzgerald’s version is wonderful, but she scats through most of it so, no lyrics.
“You must take the "A" train
to go to Sugar Hill, way up in Harlem”
I haven’t visited Sugar Hill yet. To be honest, I had always equated the area with a trio of young men who rapped about “the rhythm of the boogity b” : they called themselves “The Sugarhill Gang”: I didn’t understand how important the area was during the Harlem Renaissance as an enclave for successful African Americans seeking the “sweet life”.
Man. I cannot imagine being neighbors with Langston Hughes, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Thurgood Marshall, Lena Horne…
On grocery store runs, I would have to dress a whole lot better than I do now.
It’s amazing that Great-Uncle Lawrence is on that record. I’ve seen him playing trombone on YouTube and listened to him hundreds of times. It’s cool that I can still hear the music of somebody related to me… and pass that along to The Future Generations.
I’ve written tons of music, but no one’s really heard it. I know that in your experience music was mostly live and not recorded, and the idea of capturing music was like putting leftovers in a Ziplok™ bag to save for later.
I mean, I was never as daring as you to sneak out of the house and head to 12th and Vine to listen to bands like Basie. Mom would’ve been apoplectic. Anyway, how could I do better than your basement, complete with fancy lights with colored bulbs and sometimes a full can of pop?
Now that is a jazz club.
I have been working on some music, but they discontinued the computer program that I write it in, so I’ve had to translate it all to another one.
I know, I should have just written it on paper, but then I can’t hear it played by an orchestra (except in my head).
Your encouragement for my aspiration as a composer has always been appreciated, but I never could imagine how being a composer could initiate the kind of significant changes you’ve accomplished. I always seem to be riding trains and visiting dentists and whatnot.
I remember your telling me that Billy Strayhorn actually wrote “Take the A Train”, and I just read Duke Ellington’s memorial of his life, which described him as a man with “four major moral freedoms”:
freedom from hate, unconditionally
freedom from all self-pity (even throughout all the pain and bad news)
freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might help another more than it would help himself
freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel he was better than his brother or neighbor
That is, without a doubt, a template for a role model. If I could be an artist like that, maybe I would be uplifting my historical legacy.
Well, your historical legacy.
It’s not just that I’m easily amused, but I am quite often fascinated with life.
Good or bad, complicated or blissfully simple, the kaleidoscope of need, drive, and aspiration that New York City generates is hypnotic to watch.
Every morning, every person on that subway car is going somewhere, hundreds of individuals, criss-crossing paths at over 80 mph.
It should be overwhelming, but the soundtrack in my head, of sweet saxophones and crisp brass and bright piano licks, turns that chaos into jazz.
Thanks for all the records in the basement.
Love from Sesame Street.
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