1964

A black boy born into abject poverty in a violent New Orleans neighborhood ends up changing the face of an emerging style of music called jazz and performs around the world in front of Kings and Queens, Emperors, Presidents and millions of beloved fans. At the far end of his career, he sings a Broadway song that can came from a long twisted history, born from minstrel shows, vaudeville and Broadway and Hollywood musicals. 

 

 A group of working class high school dropouts in the port city of Liverpool, England— a town whose name means “a pool of muddy water”—listen obsessively to the music of black American blues musicians—including a musician named Muddy Waters! They form a band playing music deeply influenced by the blues tradition of the Deep South.

 

Three brothers, a cousin and a friend from Southern California start a garage band managed by their father and begin writing songs about surfing, cars and young love influenced by the R &B style and vocal harmonies of old black singing groups. They latter incorporate elements inspired by both jazz and classical music.

 

Four working class Italian American teenagers from Newark, New Jersey get together to form a Doo-Wop singing group, a style that evolved in black American communities during the 1940’s that was influenced by earlier vocal groups like the Ink Spots and The Mills Brothers. 

 

A group of black junior high school girls living in a Detroit housing project form a vocal group that catches the attention of a record producer named Berry Gordy. They eventually become part of group of black artists forging a new musical style known as Motown. 

 

A poor Jewish girl from Brooklyn finds herself obsessed with getting on stage. After singing two songs in a gay nightclub in Greenwich Village to great acclaim, she is encouraged to pursue singing alongside with acting. She does.

 

 At 24 years old, a Brazilian woman from Rio de Janeiro who likes to sing with her friends at parties comes to New York and records a song with her husband and a white Jewish jazz saxophone player that goes on to sell 5 million copies. 

 

What's going on here? The artists above are Louis Armstrong, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The  Four Seasons,  The Supremes, Barbra Streisand, Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz. The songs they sang— Hello Dolly, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Get Around, Rag Doll, People, Where Did Your Love Go?, The Girl from Ipanema and more are all in the top 100 Hit Parade of one extraordinary year— 1964.  These songs were broadcast on the radio airwaves, played in homes with record players and enjoyed by people of all backgrounds. They both reflected and shaped the American (and worldwide) cultural landscape and revealed an extraordinary mixture of influences that criss-crossed and intersected like Venn diagrams on steroids.  A public hungry for someone to express so many parts of themselves that they had to check at the door of the school or office was happy to welcome them all. Here was a music that is America at its best.

 

Yet of course, it’s not that simple. Our painful and ongoing political history of unevenly shared power and a twisted narrative creeps into every corner of our cultural landscape like an invisible poisonous gas and while most everyone’s happy to hear such great music, very few are paying the price of looking backstage to see what’s going on behind the scenes. As proven time and time again, you can buy your ticket to hear Louis Armstrong and love every minute of how he makes you feel when he plays, but still make sure he comes through the back door, doesn’t stay at the hotel or eat at the hotel restaurant. 

 

But if we are to take that long overdue and needed journey backstage, why not start with the truth of what we already know? That that amazing variety of songs and styles and musical groups featured in the 1964 Hit Parade gave— and gives us— so much pleasure is both a motivation to find out how it happened joined with the joy of the music itself. And for some of us— me, for example, who was a ripe 13 years old that year and ready for it to both affirm feelings, open me to new ones, connect me with fellow listeners, it was the soundtrack of my emerging adulthood. 

 

And there’s so much more than just the above! Dean Martin, Roy Orbison, Mary Wells, Al Hirt, Manfred Mann, the Dixie Cups, Ray Charles, The Dave Clark Five, Nancy Wilson (a jazz singer), the Four Tops. I’m determined to either teach a class about this, write a book, do a Podcast or all of the above. Stay tuned!

The Heavens Are Singing

·     R & B/Soul singer Tina Turner.

·     Opera singer Grace Bumbry, 

·     Folk singer Gordon Lightfoot. 

·     Calypso singer Harry Belafonte.

·     Jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. 

·     Jazz saxophonist  Wayne Shorter. 

·     Songwriter Burt Bacharach. 

·     Rock musician David Crosby. 

And as of yesterday, Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto joined the heavenly choir. 

 

Not even halfway through the year, that’s a long list of musical icons who brought so much memorable music to the American landscape that now have passed on. The fact that virtually everyone above lived into their 80’s and 90’s helps soften the blows of their passing, but still we will miss them. Thanks to recording technology, the cliché of “they will live on through the music they left us” is  gospel truth—but only if we take the time to keep listening.

 

So that’s what I did to honor Astrud, whose gentle voice is indelibly imprinted in her Girl From Ipanema recording, a song that sold over five-million-records, joined the 1964 Hit Parade alongside The Beatles I Want to Hold Your Hand, Louis Armstrong’s Hello Dolly, The Beach Boys I Get Around, Barbara Streisand’s People, Mary Wells My Guy and more (1964 was an amazing eclectic musical year!) and is believed to be the second most-recorded song after the Beatles Yesterday.  She was only 24 years old when she made that recording, was paid $120 and never got another penny in spite of its popularity. Apparently, it was almost an afterthought, as her husband Joao Gilberto was about to record the song with Stan Getz and then casually suggested that his wife sing a verse in English. 

 

Thank you, Astrud, for your sonic legacy forever imprinted on our minds and I wish we folks down here on earth could hear what music you and Tina and Wayne and David and Ahmad etc. are putting together. I hope you get to sing again with Joao (who died in 2019) and consider letting Stan (Getz) in the band even though he falsely claimed credit for “discovering” you. May the heavens ring!

 

PS A partial list of other heavenly bands formed in the two years before this.

 

2022:Loretta Lynn, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ramsey Lewis. Pharoah Sanders. Joey De Francesco.

 

2021:Mike Nesmith, Stephen Sondheim, Paddy Moloney, Charlie Watts, Don Everly, Chick Corea, Jimmie Rodgers

The Buzz of the Crowd

It’s a Tuesday morning and some 100 kids and another 100 plus parents are gathering in the school Community Hall. Soon kindergarten, 2^ndgrade and 4^thgrade will be up on stage performing in their Spring Music Concert. The crowd is a’ buzz with excitement and anticipation. Me, I’m on the piano bench taking a moment to savor it all.

 

Remember the pandemic? I often lost sight of what it feels like to be in a crowd like this not worrying about six-foot distances or masks or number quotas. Sitting in a crowded restaurant or a movie theater or a concert hall, gathering in the Orff workshop circle, gathering at a political rally, all those experiences we took for granted as normal, receded further and further into the distance during the pandemic and were difficult to call back in the imagination. After fifteen months of sheltering, I finally taught my first Orff workshop and when we gathered in a circle, the moment when we held hands was like an electric shock of a needed recognition that this was what we are meant to do. I remember just standing in silence for a minute or so before beginning a song, just wholly amazed to be reunited, a deep thirst finally quenched with that first cool drink of life-giving water.

 

I recalled that all for one moment today, now so thankfully back in a norm of gathering that we take for granted. As we do when our fervent hopes and dreams and longings and wishes are finally met and in that first moment, there is a deeper layer of appreciation and gratitude and amazement. Which quickly becomes just the way things are and loses its luster. That’s normal. But nice to take that moment and drink in the “roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd” as young children were preparing to offer the gifts of their hard work in concert preparation back to the audience. For some, it may be their first taste of the power of the performing arts, as memorable as their first ice cream cone and as refreshing and sweet. 

 

I also thought about fellow retired music teachers who chose retirement as the time to close the door to all of that, to enjoy solitude or travel or pickleball and not look back. They may have loved every moment of their previous teaching life, but when it was done, it was done. No regrets, no nostalgia, just ready to move on to the next chapter. If they had been in that room, they might have thought, “Why am I here?? And will the pickleball court be free when this is over?” 

 

But not me. That low murmur of children’s voices still is music to my ears and I’m still happy to assist them in their musical journey any way I can. It doesn’t make me better or worse than my colleagues in the closed-door category— it just happens to be my truth. Someday I may choose the old Indian idea of retiring to the woods and spending my days with morning birds, flowering gardens, star-filled night skies. But for now, children singing are my birds, garden and shining firmament. Go figure.

 

And for the record, the kids performed enthusiastically, joyfully and flawlessly and all in that room were refreshed. A good way to start a Tuesday morning.

 

Leaky Pens

There is a mistaken notion in some progressive education circles that young kids are wise and worthy of writing teacher evaluations that could cost a teacher his or her job. Having been questioned by an administrator about an incident in my class because a kid complained about it, I never did get the chance to talk to either the administrator or kid. Nor did I get “fired” from my volunteer job. The whole thing just kind of went away.

 

But had I talked to the administrator, I would have said, “Why are you giving so much power to what this 12-year-old says? Did you ever ask him what his part in that incident was? Did you talk to me before sending me an e-mail insinuating that I had violated some code of proper teacher conduct? Do you remember what you were like at 12?”

 

Thanks to rummaging through an old file, I do have some clear evidence of how my 12-year-old mind functioned— a letter written to my parents explaining why my report card wasn’t as good as it should be. What a treasure!!!

First off, the fact that I wrote it showed that I was trying to take a step, however awkward, towards a mature responsibility that owns my shortcomings instead of immediately blaming it on someone or something else. I begin by trying to give an honest overview—“My English papers have been quite well (which is not a well-constructed English sentence!),but mechanical English tests are lacking excellence.”

 

Then comes the 12-year old excuses. "Spelling was the fault of leaky pens!" Then back to owning up. "Arithmetic lacks accuracy." And then the most honest sentence of the whole letter. “Social studies and reading, I’m just not doing that well.” Love it!

 

 So there you have a 12-year-old mind edging toward a more mature sense of my role in my successes and failures. Thank goodness I didn’t grow up in a culture that encouraged me to blame it all on my bad teachers and get away scot-free from having to consider my role in the process. Here’s the whole letter. And note— my handwriting is pretty good!

 

PS I was wondering why I wrote this letter and just noticed the A- in the bottom left. Clearly, it was my teacher that made my write it! Again, a nod to the days when teachers held their students’ feet to the fire. But now I’m wondering, “Why did I only get an A-? Was it because of the leaky pens?”

Life Lived Backwards

One of the most impactful books I have read is a book called The Soul’s Code by James Hillman. In it, he revives the old Greek idea that we don’t come into this world empty, but our Soul is called down to earth for a purpose. Our Spirit Guide tells us that purpose before we are born, but once here, we forget it and have to make the effort to re-discover it. (Very much like the idea of the Secret Song within us waiting to be revealed!). The Greeks called that twin whispering in our ear our Daimon, the Romans our Genius. (Michael Meade’s book The Genius Myth further elaborates on this life-changing idea.)

 

As a psychologist, Hillman dismissed the idea that our adulthood is formed by a series of accidental experiences and traumas that emerge from the therapist’s couch to explain why we’re so messed up. Instead, he talks about reading life backwards, how the seeds of our life’s purpose were already in place as children. 

 

He gives an example of the famous bullfighter Manolete, who was very shy as a child and often hid behind his mother’s skirts. Life read forwards would have us believe that he stepped into the bullring to compensate for his mother complex. Life read backwards suggests that as a young boy, some part of him already knew about the thousand-pound charging bulls he would face, so without knowing why, he already was terrified.

 

With this idea as a backdrop, I was fascinated to stumble upon my old report cards and read the teacher’s comments. There seemed to be an ongoing thread.

 

1^stGrade: Mrs. Williams: 

   Douglas contributes to class discussions. He expresses his ideas well.

 

2^ndGrade: Mrs. Tomsu

Douglas has a very bad habit of talking right out in class and interrupting others. 

(I do remember that one afternoon, she taped my mouth shut for an hour!)

 

3^rdgrade: Miss Rice

Douglas continues to talk out and disturb the class.

(I spent much of third grade out in the hall. But also fascinating in her comments is alternating sentences of praise and condemnation— see photo below. I have to laugh at “Douglas it very very annoying…” )

 

4^thgrade: Mrs. Hendrickson

Douglas is a leader in class discussion.

 

6^thgrade: Miss Conover(5^thgrade report card by Mr. Anderson is missing)

Douglas’s book report have been of superior quality. In writing, he creates little masterpieces in stories and poems!

 

So as a kid, I clearly had a lot to say! And was not shy about saying it! Those who have been in staff meetings with me would recognize that tendency, but what can be seen as a negative social skill is my Daimon encouraging me to speak up, to say what others are afraid to say out loud or don't have the words for. I thought this Blog and writing ten books might get it all out of my system, but still, I find I often have something to say in any discussion. Hopefully more to the side of “leading discussion” than “disturbing the class.”

 

When I first read Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, it struck me that my primary intelligence is much more linguistic than musical. The hint is that I’m much more likely to have sentences running through my thoughts than musical notes. Very few in the world recognize me first and foremost as a writer as I’ve forged my identity at a music teacher. So what do the early report cards say about that?

 

My grades in music between 4^th and 6^th grade were, in order.

A / B/ B/ C/ C/ C-

 

Reading life backwards, one might say that some part of me recognized that sitting in desks singing forgettable songs with bad tuning and diction that never got better was not a worthy music education. Apparently, I fooled around a lot in music class. And when Orff Schulwerk crossed my path and offered the kind of music education I wished I had had, I was ready to follow it as far as I could. Which I’ve done— writing about it every step of the way.

 

Do you have your old report cards? If so, take a look and read your life backwards and see what comes up. 

 

The Secret Song Revealed

Yesterday was my seventh viewing of The Secret Song, the film made about my last year at my school. In each of the previous six viewings, I discovered something new. It's a testimony to the artistry of the filmmakers and ordinary things portrayed that take on a glimmer of the extraordinary that the film has so many layers. Like playing a Bach fugue countless times, there is always something else waiting to be revealed. It really is a film that needs to be seen at least three times for its true meaning to be understood. 

 

Of course, like all art, it’s “true meeting” is viewer specific and not a one-size-fits-all Aesop’s Moral. Through what is portrayed and how it’s portrayed, the images and sounds and story speak for themselves. That said and done, there are certainly many takeaways, conscious or sub-conscious, that I hope might strike the viewers. 

 

Some might think it’s a film about me and they should leave with feelings about who I am and what I’ve done. In my younger days, let’s face it, I would have been pleased to hear people come up to me afterwards and said, “Wow! You’re awesome! You’re amazing! You are so talented! You’re a rock star!” I would have been quite happy with some flirtatious come-thither glances and certainly with offers to be my agent or publicist or invitations to be interviewed at Fresh Air. But truthfully, such comments now would disappoint me. (Though those flirtatious glances, so long gone in my life, would be at least a little bit welcome! As would a Fresh Air interview!)

 

With a little reflection, it’s clear that the film is as much about my relationship with my two colleagues James and Sofia and a celebration of their own particular genius that they offer to kids. Or one might telescope out further to the school culture that allowed such things to flourish, making them possible in all sorts of ways beyond any normal job definition. It could also be seen as a testament to progressive education, to Orff Schulwerk, to San Francisco. And in the second half of the film, it becomes about that pandemic we all shared and the grief, challenges, small pleasures and resilience it called forth in us all. The more you reflect, the wider the view gets.

 

But in the seventh viewing, a new and truer vision emerged. Shown at an actual still-running movie theater on a big screen with popcorn, open to a varied public from SF School present and past students and parents to fellow Orff teachers to neighborhood folks, friends, family and a public just curious about seeing a film in this particular film festival, the stage was set for an experience far beyond simple streaming it while sitting alone at home. There was a palpable buzz in the theater before it started, a hushed silence when it began, the predictable moments of laughter and quiet reflection and joy and sorrow while it was running and then a thunderous applause with whoops and shouts at the end lasting a couple of minutes. 

 

“What was that about?” I thought. And that’s when the next  layer revealed itself, the true lyrics and tune of the Secret Song we all carry. What really struck me last night was a shift from the "film about me" or "me, James and Sofia" to a film about everyone who loves music, loves kids, loves education, loves community and just generally loves to have fun! I felt in that prolonged applause as sense of shared community cheering for the things we all mutually care about.  The film is a reminder of just how needed these things are, shown time and time again in the smiles, laughter, serious efforts, small (and big) triumphs of kids given the invitation and tools to express themselves by caring adults and the beautiful, relaxed, trusting atmosphere between the student and the teacher.

 

So let me repeat: This is not a film about me, nor about James, Sofia and I, nor about Orff Schulwerk, nor about music teachers. It’s a film about us—all of us, young or old, teacher, student or other profession, American or Brazilian or Icelandic or Korean. The whole carnaval of human possibility gathered in a couple of acres on Gaven Street, but singing out and holding hands with everyone and everywhere.

 

There’s a hope that this might show on PBS and at first glance, how to convince them knowing so few would choose to see a film about music teachers? But if we open our eyes to the idea that this film offers exactly what we all need— love, life and laughter, hope in a time of despair, purpose in the face of meaningless distractions, adults who have never stopped playing like kids and kids ripening into a genuine adult promise— well, that’s a Secret Song worth making public, worth singing, worth playing and dancing to. It lies within us all, only waiting to be revealed.

 

PS There are three more days left to see it streamed through the SF Doc Film Festival. 

Spread the glad tidings!

https://sfdocfest2023.eventive.org/schedule/6427399e371abf0095a7bea1

PSS It also made it into the SF Chronicle newspaper, with my name in the caption as Doug Goodwin!

 

I Wrote This Post

Many people in my generation have had the experience of cleaning house after their parents pass away. Not a happy job, but the sweetest moments are finding some old letters. Perhaps they were love letters from long ago or letters that they wrote to you or you wrote to them that they saved. Such treasures! There they live again, their character remembered in their unique handwriting alongside the way they turn a sentence, the things they notice, what passes for news in their mind as they share a slice of their life or their exotic vacation.

 

As the generations pass, that is becoming more and more rare. If you’re lucky, there might be typed e-mails that were printed and saved or old school papers they wrote or Christmas card newsletters they sent. If you’re very lucky, you might uncover some old journals, still handwritten or find a folder on the computer of little poems they had jotted down or a little scrapbook with Letters to the Editor they had written. Minus the handwriting, some of the character is lost, but you can still locate the person in their grammar and syntax and unique comments about their time here on earth— what they noticed, what they wished for, what they hurt from, what they care about. 

 

Has anybody thought about this in our rush to replace human beings with artificial counterparts? What emotions will course through you as you read their school papers written by Chatgpt? Their letters to friends or colleagues or even enemies where they gave their power over to that oh-so-clever machine and lost themselves in the process. Lost a chance to leave their own footprint in the sand and settled for the machine walking the beach in its perfect evenly measured steps. 

 

When the kids clean out the house, will they weep as they read the avalanche of trivial text messages on their parents’ phone? Will they try to scroll back through past posts on Facebook? (And by the way, can you do that?). Will they frame art that was computer-generated and open their heart to the sounds of patched-in-music from Garage Band? Will they tell stories about their Dad shouting at people to move up at the intersection when turning left when traveling in driverless cars? Remember their Mom’s vibrant conversation with the taxi driver when the driver’s seat is now empty?

 

And when they’re gone, who will remember them and how? Who will care?

 

All of this prompted by a piece written by the current head of my old high school, Tim Lear. He notes the replacement of actual discussion around a table with all the screened communication, the growing sense that we think instant mediated communication brings us all together when in fact, it leaves us feeling lonelier than ever. In a letter to the community, he wrote:

 

Consistently showing up for each other is how we build community. It’s equally important to remember to show up for ourselves. In his recent New York Times essay (“For People to Really Know Us, We Need to Show Up”), Brad Stulberg writes that when we don’t make a habit of showing up, we’re increasing the chances that our absence will neither be noticed nor missed. Communities actually miss people. When fewer people start missing us, the resulting loneliness and isolation are a recipe for a myriad of negative effects on our physical and mental health. 

 

Every day, I see five to ten driverless cars traveling with no passengers around the streets of San Francisco and my heart sinks at each sighting. My teacher daughter told me some teachers are using Chatgpt to write their report card comments or graduation speeches for students. Every bureaucracy (except the DMV!) is making it hard to talk to a person on the phone or (God forbid!) in person. I am in no hurry to leave this planet, but this is starting to make the prospect more appealing. 

 

In short, this is not the world I signed up for. People are hopelessly flawed and in the last eight years of Republican insanity and Putin’s army, we seem to be getting worse and worse. And yet still I believe in our possibility and prefer us to machines. And yes, I’ve sacrificed writing these 3,791 Blogposts by hand, but still, every ounce of my character and thought and feeling can be found there for anyone who cares to look. I  wrote this post and all the others before and all the others to come. I will NOT let Chatgpt write tomorrow’s post while I sit in the backseat of a driverless car texting my friends.

 

In these ever more confused times, that ridiculous vow is an act of courage.