Heart to Heart

Benny Goodman played the Philadelphia Academy of Music around 1973. A bunch of us impoverished jazz fans took seats in the nosebleed section. He was fifteen minutes late and we mortified the rich furred and fluffed front seaters by stomping our feet and chanting, "We want Goodman, we want Goodman". An old man came on, eyeglasses glinting in the stage lights. As he played, his bones unstiffened, the music pulsed up, golden, fluid honey. Then poof, too soon, it was over. We pounded for encore after encore. The rich folk had drifted out way before the final, "Sweet Georgia Brown". The die-hards craved more. By jingo we wanted our seven bucks worth! Goodman moved off stage as music’s afterglow still lingered in the air. We got up without speaking and left.

Friends consider me a bit of a Luddite. Raised with classical music and jazz at home, I never got into contemporary rock, blinking before it like a bewildered cave dweller in the sunlight. As a kid, I’d sit for hours listening to Tchaikovsky’s stretched and mournful Pathetique. By bits and pieces though, it came. The Beatle’s hauntingly beautiful Norwegian Wood. That tight a capella riff in the Beach Boy’s Sloop John B, so lovely you could cry. There was music in there. Good stuff that reached in and grabbed you by the tonsils.

Listen for it in today's music. Every once and a while they get it too. From their heart to your heart.

Uncle Rocco Had Style

I never met him. As a matter of fact, I haven’t even seen his photo. But I have been told about him so many times, that a vibrant image comes to mind. A dashing figure. A fine story teller. A man of wit and charm and good looks. He could draw and paint and play many instruments. He gave lessons. He had a following, and was invited to parties. His siblings adored him as someone with a “great gift”. You knew when he entered the room. Scarlet lined cape flipped over a shoulder, soft Fedora at a jaunty angle over one eye, sporting a hand carved cane. He filled the space. He had presence.

But in his heart of hearts who was he? In the down times, when left to himself? Sure he came to family functions on occasion. And if you know anything about Italian family functions you know the warmth, and food, and good times that entails. But in the end, all my mom could tell me is he married a barmaid and they had many children. Mom never met them. The family always stayed home.