“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
John F. Kennedy Speech, Frankford, June 25, 1963.
Music is all around us. We don’t need to be sophisticated musicians, experienced concertgoers, or amateur or professional performers to enjoy it. We just need to take time to listen.
Here we are - still in November, the month of 80. I have been thinking about the many touchtones throughout my life. I have many spectacular young adult memories as well as the current wonderful evenings and surprises. Take a walk with me through the years of birthday touchtones.
How well I remember my 16th birthday. My parents surprised me with house seats at The Palace - this wonderful theater that attracted acts like Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, Lauritz Melchior, and Judy Garland. In October 1951, Judy Garland opened in a vaudeville-style, two-a-day engagement at the newly refurbished Palace Theatre. Her 19-week engagement exceeded all previous records for the theater and was described as "one of the greatest personal triumphs in show business history." The moment as Judy took to the edge of the stage with her legs dangling and belting out ‘Over the Rainbow’ - never to be forgotten. And I was there with Bruce Nelson, a good looking date seated to my right, in a Scotch tweed jacket, itchy as I recall.
Frank Sinatra at the Paramount once said, “The sound that greeted me was absolutely deafening. It was a tremendous roar. Five thousand kids, stamping, yelling, screaming, applauding. I was scared stiff. I couldn’t move a muscle. Benny Goodman froze, too. He was so scared he turned around, looked at the audience, and said, “What the hell was that?” I probably wasn’t there that night - but many Sinatra filled birthdays in the 50‘s. Friends and family would go to The Brass Rail for celebrations.
That was the beauty of being a teenager and young adult in New York City. Nothing was out of reach for us. We could ride the subways without concern and we could afford the price of tickets. I don’t think we realized at the time that we were living through the most powerful time in music history.
And then came JAZZ - Norman Kranz recruited Gene Krupa and fellow drummer Buddy Rich for his Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. It was suggested that the two perform a 'drum battle' at the Carnegie Hall concert in September 1952. I was there with another date, and not in an itchy Scotch tweed jacket. My date was a drummer, Gene Sass - I can’t believe I remember his name - but he was certainly my guy at the time. That was until I met my Jerry. Jerry loved the music as I did. So, we subwayed into Manhattan to enjoy the Jazz clubs.
Birdland was a favorite jazz club started in New York City in 1949. I celebrated my 20th birthday in that crowded, smoke filled jazz club. Irving Levy, Morris Primack, and Oscar Goodstein – along with six other partners – purchased the club from Joe Catalano. They adopted the name, "Birdland" to capitalize on the popularity of their regular headliner Charlie “Yardbird” Parker who, at that time, had been enjoying undisputed popularity as a jazz artist.
I was in my 30's during the turbulent decade of the 60's. On unforgettable November 22, 1963, the assassination of JFK kept us fixated on the TV for days and gave us an insecurity that other decades had not felt before. I will always remember where I was when Walter Cronkite announced that the President had been shot. It was at that moment - that my life came into focus. It was in response to John F. Kennedy’s words at his Inaugural Address - '”Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
My 51st birthday was one in a million. On one of our regular NY working trips, Jerry and I went to ‘our’ favorite piano bar - the great Duplex, NY’s world famous cabaret and piano bar in West Greenwich Village. Todd was a New Yorker at the time and introduced us to this Village life. I didn’t expect what happened because I would never think of it happening - our friend at the piano and at the bar arranged for cast members of La Cage aux Folles to come in that evening, not for me but for the bar. The words of those songs held so much meaning for me - it was my very favorite show on Broadway at the time. When they sang “The Best of Times” I remember trembling. And those words still haunt me today.
The best of times is now
What’s left of Summer
But a faded rose?
The best of times is now
As for tomorrow, well, who knows?
Who knows? Who knows?
So hold this moment fast
And live and love
As Hard as you know how
And make this moment last
Because the best of times is now
Is now, is now
80th Celebration - Bringing us up to this year - just imagine my excitment as I was sitting on the Floor Level in the 19th row of BP Pavillion watching the ever sensational Barbra Streisand. It brought back memories of my attending her first concert in Indianapolis. Sunday December 1, 1963 in Clowes Memorial Hall at Butler University. Streisand played there almost two months after it opened. The auditorium seated 2,200 people. There she was standing alone on stage in her white middy blouse. She captured the audience then and now at 70, she still captures her audience but this time with of over 18,000 guests.
A story in the local Indianapolis newspaper in 1963 said:
"Miss Streisand will play an 8:30 p.m. concert Dec. 1 as one of her three concert hall debut-appearances before going back to New York to resume rehearsal for the new musical "Funny Girl", where she will play the starring role of Fanny Brice. The girl with the much-quoted "Purple grab" in her voice, Miss Streisand specializes in offbeat singing interspersed with quixotic remarks, and is universally acclaimed as the year's 'hottest new singing discovery."
