Moths to the Flame

Like many my age, I’m perfectly content to stay at home most nights. But when the occasion calls for it, I’m happy to brave driving in the dark, looking for parking and joining the crowd. And for the last three nights, the occasion certainly called loud and clear. Wednesday night at Yoshi’s to see Herlin Riley’s jazz concert (as noted two posts ago), Thursday night to sweet little jazz club called Mr. Tipples to see two of my alum students perform, Gabriel and Eytan Schillinger -Hyman.  These twin brothers came to our Middle School about 15 years ago winning Chopin piano competitions. When they got to 8^th grade, I had Gabriel try out some jazz piano and the Eytan try out our acoustic stand-up bass. And lo and behold, that’s exactly what they’re playing in the jazz trio that performed and both, expertly so. That was a night worth leaving the house for.

 

And then last night. A couple of years ago, I went to a Moth event where both I and my daughter’s boyfriend Matt told a story. He came in first, me 3^rd or 4^th, and because he won, he was featured in last night’s Grand Slam! And icing on the cake—at the Castro Theater!

 

If you don’t know about the Moth, it’s a storytelling venue with events every month or so in some 28 cities nationwide. The premise is simple. We all have amazing stories to tell—here’s your chance to do it! In under six minutes, without notes, with only true things that happened and with respect toward all—no edgy jokes or comments tolerated. Judges picked that night give you a score, if you win (as Matt did), you go on later to this Grand Slam event. 

 

If you don’t know about the Castro Theater, it’s one of San Francisco’s oldest movie houses, with fabulous iconic movies (Vertigo, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Misfits, sing-along Sound of Music and so much more) in a big, beautiful theater with live organ music before the show. Think the Sistine Chapel or Notre Dame of movie theaters. Many a memorable movie have I seen there seated next to many memorable people. When the pandemic hit, my biggest fear is that it would close and never re-open. And indeed, that almost happened. But in the past few years, it has re-opened as a multi-purpose theater featuring some movies, concerts, lectures and —well, the Moth Grand Slam.

 

It was the first time I walked through the doors in over six years and all the memories came flooding back in. Including the buzz in the air, as the theater was jam packed just like some of those movies had been, with that delightful feeling of being part of some significant cultural event and carried along with the energy of people out for a memorable evening. With the exception of over-priced disappointing popcorn, the evening rose to its promise. Matt was the first storyteller and did a great job and at the end, I felt he was one of three who could have been chosen as the “winner.” He wasn’t and neither were the other two, but no matter, it wasn’t really about winning first place. 

 

What moved me was that all this exuberant energy, all these people turned out on a Friday night, was not for some big, overblown, tech-flashy spectacle with the volume pumped up. It was all for people who could be our neighbor or co-worker or cashier at the grocery store just standing up and telling a story. No props, no visuals, no soundtrack, no showy credentials. I love that. The Moth is named because we are all hungry for stories, drawn to them like moths to the flame. And in this day of the Jumbotrons and enormous speakers and bell-and-whistle- technologies, a simple voice in a microphone is enough to awaken our delight in the tender, funny, scary, outrageous, simple stories that we all hold simply from being living human beings. And the grand pleasure of sharing it with others. In six minutes.

 

So hooray for that, hooray for the Castro theater, hooray for Matt and all the friends who came out to support him, hooray for the secret parking place I found that I will use again, hooray for nights out on the town.

 

But I confess I’m really looking forward to staying home tonight!

 

Follow the Flow

“Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.” -  André Gide

I’m always looking for the words that capture my particular way of moving through the world and today’s Inspiring Quotes offering gives voice to my experience of teaching as a verb, not a noun. I might add “be open to surprise” or “follow the flow,” both of which articulate my class today with first-graders. While we were all enjoying dancing the play-party The Paw Paw Patch, one boy complained of a headache, so I let him sit out. But wanted him to keep connected, I gave him a pair of spoons to play with the music and after about five-minutes, he was killin’ it! An unexpected surprise for us both.

When it was over and the kids were lining up, I was still playing the music on the piano and one girl started to dance in an Appalachian clogging style. She was great! I asked if she took dance lessons and she just said she taught herself to dance like that. And then, to top it off, the kids told me it was her birthday! So I called back the spoon player, changed the words to “ Happy, happy, happy birthday!” and had all the kids sang gather in a circle around her singing while she danced. 

 

Need I say that none of this was in the lesson plan? Can you imagine how happy she was?

 

So teachers, parents, people, stay alert to possibility, be open to surprise, follow the flow and be prepared to be astounded. 

The Humanitarian Musician

Last night, I had the grand pleasure and great privilege of seeing drummer Herlin Riley perform at Yoshi’s Jazz Club. Thanks to my NOLA Jazz Course coordinator Allen Dejan, I got to meet Herlin in 2019, both as a guest artist in my course and then performing with Ellis Marsalis at Snug Harbor. His musicianship was astounding, but even more so, his warmth and generosity. I saw him again in San Francisco when he performed with Ahmad Jamal and then came to my school to play for and with the kids. (There’s a short clip of that in The Secret Song movie). He came again in the 2024 Nola Jazz Course, but unfortunately was out of town for the recent 2026 one. 

 

Last night’s concert was, as they say, “off the chain” and I decided to write him a little letter of appreciation. Here it is:

Herlin!

 

I have written 11 books, a couple of hundred articles and over 5,000 Blogposts— but I’m having trouble finding words sufficient to praise your extraordinary performance last night!!! The opening was exactly what I wish for in any music gathering— a celebratory, welcoming parade with hot rhythm and great dance moves and exuberant spirit that draws us all into the party. With the fireworks made yet more explosive by the hard-earned virtuosic technique of each instrumentalist— with you at the lead!. Not to show off, but to serve the occasion by adding yet more power, color, brightness, spirit and soul to it all. The choice of contrasting grooves and feelings and tempos in all the pieces that followed led us into every corner of our emotions, feelings that society wants to stay in a bland, polite middle, but are yearning for the permission to come out and dance. Permission you freely granted! 

 

I was particularly struck by your composition Rush Hour because driving to Yoshi’s, I had just spent an agonizing hour and a half stuck in San Francisco traffic, creeping one inch at a time and finally just screaming inside my car. When the sax soloist took that raw energy and cooked into an honest frustration transformed by art, I could wholly relate!

 

I love that Monk tune (Bright Mississippi), taking Sweet Georgia Brown into territory she had never visited and loved that opening groove to You Don’t Know What Love Is leading us by the back door into the beautiful tender ballad. And then your wisdom in ending as we begun— get the audience on their feet and riding the groove out from Music Time to Clock Time. Clearly, a New Orleans legacy, but also the way I like to run my Orff classes with children and adults. And I also tell them the exact same thing you said to us: “My hope is that you go out feeling better than when you came in.” And you came through on that promise times 100!

 

I’ve seen many jazz drummers in my life and they indeed are often the heartbeat of the band and constantly astound me with their capacity to hold the groove, to lead, to respond, to coordinate four limbs far beyond what most of us could ever imagine. But I have to say that you are at the top of the list, using every touch and timbre of the drum set palette with such infectious exuberance and delicate control. 

 

And as if that weren’t enough, you are one of the most warm and welcoming human beings I know! My last book is titled The Humanitarian Musician and you are the poster person for that needed combination! (And if you’d be willing to give me your address, I’d be delighted to send it to you.)

 

As I said, the words fall far too short, but I decided to attempt them anyway, following the airport model: “If you see something, say something.” When God comes in the house in that Art Tatum kind of way, we are obliged to notice and praise and give thanks. 

 

Thanks again, Herlin, for all you do and all you are.

 

In deep appreciation,

 

Doug 

Accentuate the Positive

 

One of the units in the SF School Singing Times I called “Happy Songs.” Jazz songs mostly from the Depression that encouraged people to not despair and look on the “sunnyside of life.” A short list: 

• Accentuate the Positive

• Best Things in Life are Free 

• Blue Skies

• High Hopes

• My Favorite Things

• Pennies from Heaven

• Pick Yourself Up

• Put on a Happy Face

• Shine on Your Shoes

• Side By Side 

• Sunny Side of the Street

• When You’re Smiling

• Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

 

One could argue that these are on the naïve side and better to sing the Blues and go through the grief rather than tap dance around it. But nevertheless, these songs work.  You can’t help but feel a needed uplift singing them. And even more so if you see a little clip of the movies they were featured in: Fred and Ginger singing/ dancing Pick Yourself Up in Swing Time, Frank Sinatra singing High Hopes in A Hole in the Head, Dick van Dyke and Janet Leigh dancing/singing Put on a Happy Face in Bye Bye Birdie and Julie Andrews singing My Favorite Things in The Sound of Music. Music teachers and parents alike, may I highly recommend that you share both the songs and the movie clips (or whole movies) with the kids? I almost guarantee they’ll love it. 

 

Not only do these songs help when the world’s weight is on our shoulders, but also they remind us in happy times like this recent election that we indeed “picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and started all over again,” that we little ants never thought we had the power to sink a rubber tree plant and suddenly, “Oops! There goes another rubber tree plant,” sunk by our unflagging high hopes and hard work, that the hope that “grey skies are going to clear up” and “blue skies (and a blue tsunami!) are smiling on me” finally came true. Etc.

 

So yesterday, my second day of subbing back at the old school, James and I sang some of the above in honor of the occasion. At the end of the Singing Time, a teacher had six 5^th grade boys stay after to discuss their lack of focus and decision to fool around. Good for him! In our misguided efforts to “understand” the kids, too many teachers and parents these days are letting unacceptable behavior slide. 

 

But truth be told, I hadn’t notice their bad behavior. Why? Because without effort, I took the advice of “Accentuate the Positive” and spent the whole time looking at one 4^th grade girl singing with such unabashed happiness and infectious passion. She invited my full attention and I was happy to give it to her.

A poet once spoke about how he had suffered through a long, exhausting trip with bad weather and cancelled flights to finally arrive at his poetry reading with 20 people who showed up— and most of them looked bored. But he noticed one person listening as if his life depended on it and that’s where he directed his attention. Just one person was worth all the trials and tribulations.  

 

A good lesson for us all. 

Riding the Wave

I have never surfed in my life and I think I can safely cross that off my bucket list. But I admire a sport that depends upon following the flow of the natural world for success. No mechanical devices pedaling uphill nor fossil-fueled boosts to move from one place to another. Just reading the break of the wave and trying to— well, surf— its momentum. 

 

Again, I’m no scientist, but I imagine a whole ocean behind that one brief moment of the wave’s breaking, all sorts of currents feeding into that split-second crash. And these folks with a simple board figuring out how to navigate it all for that thrill of the perfect ride. 

 

Here I am back in my old school. Some five weeks ago, a week teaching my colleague James’ classes and now another week with Sofia’s students. The same pleasure of making music, singing songs and dancing dances with kids of all ages (well, 3 to 14) who are well prepared to do it all competently, joyfully and often, expertly. 7^th graders who can master the basics of Pachelbell’s canon complete with their own improvised/composed variations in a mere two classes. 3^rd graders who can learn a Serbian song through solfege, improvise dynamic movements with partners and then figure out how to play it on xylophones. In one class. 4^th graders who can learn three partner folk-dance mixers without a single moment fussing about holding hands or which partner they got. Preschoolers singing songs about turkeys, ducks, chickens, potatoes and rutabagas with great delight, elementary kids singing with passion This Land Is Your Land while looking at slides of a new government that is more diverse than at any time in our 250-year history, singing America the Beautiful and meaning it, My Country Tis of Theeand remembering Martin Luther King’s reference that it’s time to let freedom ring. And then go effortlessly from the profound to the silly as we sang Barnyard Dance where the vegetables hold a late-night party. 

I imagine all of this made possible by the 51-year ocean of the music program that I started in 1975 still going on as strong as ever and allowing me to come back to sub and keep surfing the wave of that history. Without wiping out!

May it keep flowing!

1968

All night long, those mysterious dream voices insisted that my next Blogpost title be “1968.” In the dream, I kept asking, “Why?” But without saying it directly, the voices said, “That’s your job to find out.”

 

So here I am. 1968. Most definitely, a significant year in our history. Without looking up a thing, I already know at least four major events: 

• The assassination of Martin Luther King.

• The assassination of Bobby Kennedy. 

• The escalation of the Vietnam War.

• The riots at the Chicago Democratic National Convention. 

• Nixon beats Humphrey in Presidential election

 

 

Then more with a little online help to remind me: 

            • Student protests in Paris

• Mexico City Olympics and Tommy Smith and John Carlos stripped of gold and silver medals for raising the Black Power in the ceremony.

• Bob Beamon breaks long jump record by over two feet!

• Helen Keller/ John Steinbeck die

 

In popular music: 

            • Beatles release Hey Jude single and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club 

              Band album

            • Rolling Stones release Beggars Banquet

• Band Led Zeppelin / Crosby, Stills and Nash are formed

            • Last concert by the Cream/ Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the 

               Holding Company. 

 

In jazz: 

            • Miles Davis ablums: Filles de Kilimanjaro/ Nefertiti/ Miles in the Sky

            • Chick Corea: Now He Sings, Now He Sobs

            • Herbie Hancock: Speak Like a Child

            • Wes Montgomery dies

 

In movies: 

            • 2001: A Space Odyssey

            • Funny Girl

            • Bullitt

            • Rosemary’s Baby

            • The Odd Couple

            • The Lion in Winter

 

In television: 

• Mr. Rogers first airing.

• Andy Griffith Show last airing

 

And so on. If you’re in my generation, these iconic moments stored in your cellular memory will kick up, for better or worse. I turned 17 in July of that year, finishing my junior year in high school and beginning my senior. All of 

that was forming my future self-to-be, stirring my outrage about social injustice, confirming the insanity of war and racism, confirming the importance of speaking out and showing up, while also noting the end of my Andy Griffith Show innocence and at the time, dismissing Mister Roger’s naiveté, and later, admiring so much his integrity and attempt to sow seeds of kindness in the next generation of children. 

 

Unfortunately, this lifelong happen of simultaneously living and reflecting (through writing) my life hadn’t kicked in yet. It wouldn’t until college. So except for one article in my high school newspaper, I don’t have much evidence of my emerging values of the time. Heck, I have no idea what I did that summer between junior and senior year. Not only no journal entries, but no photos either. Oh, well. No problem, except it doesn’t help provide any clues as to why my dream insisted on 1968. 

The least I can say is this. It was a turbulent time and a time of planting seeds for great change. Change that I felt had blossomed in necessary ways and pushed the moral arc towards justice, followed by the shock of the last ten years. But as noted in the post Last Gasp, there indeed has been signs that we’re finally learning what we need to learn in spite of all the media spin which helps perpetuate the toxic narratives and practices. Perhaps that was the point? 

The Full Dimension of Loss

It was a near-perfect homecoming. Back to my familiar zazen pillow and oatmeal breakfast. The pleasure of unpacking. The delight of shopping at Trader Joe’s. A lunchtime phone conversation with my daughter in Portland. Then off to get a haircut, take a new bus to my daughter’s house in San Francisco and a lovely walk in McLaren Park near her house.

 

That’s where we stumbled into a Day of the Dead celebration and I marveled at the beautiful tributes to loved ones passed on. (see photos). Here is a culture that knows how to properly mourn the dead, with such care, attention and artistry. No mass formula or pre-made bought altars, but each one unique and personal. The use of different colored seeds and flowers connecting the design with the simple bounties of the natural world alongside food, candles, stones, photos of the deceased, sometimes clothes they wore and more. 

 

I’ve had the privilege of attending funerals in Ghana and Bali, where it’s music and dance that carry the full dimension of loss, its heartbreaking sorrow and great joy that you had the good fortune to share life with the person who has passed on. Alongside the New Orleans funerals (which I’ve only seen on film, but not attended live), dynamic, soul-stirring music and dance that touch the depths of emotion and allow all gathered together to feel it all down to their bones. No polite little sermons with finger food, but life at its most raw and vibrant. 

 

This a bit on my mind I as just attended the Memory Hour at the recent Orff Conference honoring six Orff teachers who passed on this year, each one with whom I had some kind of contact. Most were five or ten years on either side of my age. The people who spoke about them were sincere and tender, speaking often with cracking voices and some appropriate tears and that felt right. 

But for somebody (me) so deeply invested in ritual and wanting to rip the façade off of polite society when the occasion calls for wailing and exulting, it just didn’t feel wholly right. I prefer flowing tears that gush so forcefully that you don’t look good, alongside belly laughter and tender silences. If anybody present there reads this, please know none of this is a personal criticism. 

 

But the lighting was wrong, the sterile hotel room was wrong, the random round tables with people sitting with backs to others was wrong, the speeches read from phones was wrong, the sight-read canons that fell short of music’s fuller possibility was wrong. I know at least one of the departed had a deeper three-hour ceremony held elsewhere and I imagine and hope the others did as well. But to try to hold such momentous passings in this hour-long container in the brightly lit room just fell so short of the artistry grief deserves that it made me wonder if it’s worth doing at all. When we do these things too casually and then rush out to the next workshop, I imagine the Spirit of the departed feels confused and disappointed. In some traditions, they believe that it is the depth of the laughter and tears and music and dance and attention that helps carry the dead person's spirit across to the land where their ancestors await them with open arms. Funerals and memorial services are partly to help those left behind bear up, but in these traditions, they also help the one who passed on complete the journey to the Land of the Ancestors. I don't think our little hour got them too far on that trip.

 

Again, I know (and hope) that memorial services elsewhere held the deeper dimension, but it just makes me wonder if we could do these things differently at future Orff Conferences. Devote a longer time to make Day of the Dead style altars, sing the songs or dance the dances our departed colleagues loved, with depth and gusto, unleash the full storm of our feelings within the artistic containers that allow us to feel the full dimension of loss. 

 

Just a thought.