The Still Roaring 20's

Well, that was a different evening! I was invited to a party from an ex-neighbor who moved into a house built in 1925. So the party theme was—1925. Celebrating the house’s 100^th birthday.  People dressed in the clothes of the era and spectacularly so. I’d share a photo, but one of the party stimulations was to leave your phone behind. An interesting thing in itself, as we have become so acclimated to and dependent on—purposefully so—our  devices. I knew how to drive to her house, but had I not, I couldn’t have used GPS. Knowing it would be a loud party, I wore my hearing aids but couldn’t adjust them to the ambient noise setting without my phone. I skimmed through a fascinating 1925 newspaper, with little pieces about immigration, free speech and jazz corrupting the youth, but couldn’t take photos of select paragraphs.  And, might I add, it felt just fine, even liberating, not to have that thing drawing my attention every five minutes. But I digress. 

 

My role at the party was to play some background music from the 1920’s on the piano. So to prepare, I went through my various  jazz books and noticed the copyright dates of pieces and came up with an astounding 88 pieces that I’m familiar with that were all written between 1920 and 1929. It’s notable that jazz musicians today still play these pieces! Of course, the interpretation is quite different from the 1920’s recordings, but the songs themselves lend themselves to constant re-invention and the sturdy harmonies and pleasing melodies hold up. Some remain as museum pieces from that era, but I can think of 30 or more of  these songs performed in the last 30 years or so by the likes of Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau, Wynton Marsalis, Dianna Krall and more. 

A couple of hours after the party started, we all gathered by the piano to sing five songs I had selected for group participation.—Tea for Two, Side by Side, Ain’t She Sweet, When You’re Smiling, Five Foot Two. Each one had both personal and cultural stories behind them, tempting to share here, but I’ll defer to later—or not. 

Meanwhile, look at the list below of the songs I came up with and see how many you recognize. Century-old songs that still speak to us, the 20’s still roaring down the ages into our present time. American songs, that carry the best of the ways in which the diverse people gathered on our land have joined together. Songs by the master songwriters we know (or should know), all born between 1891 and 1902—Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers (and Lorenz Hart), Hoagy Carmichael, among them. And many whose names we don’t know well, but left a glorious legacy.  Listen to them, play them, sing them with the children. Enjoy!

 

•      Ain’t Misbehavin’ (’29)

•      Ain’t She Sweet. (’27)

•      Always (’25)

•      April Showers (’21)

•      At Sundown (’27)

•      Aunt Hagar’s Blues (’20)

•      Avalon (’20)

•      Basin St. Blues (’28)

•      Best Things in Life Are Free (’27)

•      Bill (’27)

•      Birth of the Blues (’26)

•      Blue Skies (’27)

•      Blue Room (’26)

•      Button Up Your Overcoat (’28)

•      Bye Bye Blackbird (’26)

•      California Here I Come (’24)

•      Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man (’27)

•      Can’t We Be Friends (’29)

•      Carolina Shout (’25)

•      Charleston (’23)

•      ’Deed I Do (‘ 26)

•      Dinah (’25)

•      Everybody Loves My Baby (’24)

•      Fascinatin’ Rhythm (’24)

•      Five Foot Two (’25)

•      Hard Hearted Hannah (’24)

•      Honeysuckle Rose (’29)

•      How Long Has This Been Going On (’27)

•      I Can’t Believe You’re in Love w. Me(’26)

•      I Can’t Give You Anything But Love (’28)

•      I Cried for You (’23)

•      I Found a New Baby (’28)

•      I Want to Be Happy (’25)

•      If I Had You (’28)

•      I’ve Got a Crush on You (’28)

•      Just You, Just Me (’29)

•      King Porter Stomp (’23)

•      Liza (’29)

•      Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love (’28)

•      Look for the Silver Lining (’20)

•      Love Me or Leave Me (’28)

•      Lover, Come Back to Me (’28)

•      Mack the Knife (’25)

•      Making Whoopee (’28)

•      Man I Love, The (’24)

•      Manhattan (’25)

•      Me and My Shadow (‘27)

•      Mean to Me (’29)

•      More Than You Know (’29)

•      My Blue Heaven (’27)

•      My Heart Stood Still (’27)

•      My Lucky Star (’28)

•      Oh, Lady Be Good (’24)

•      Old Man River (’27)

•      One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else (’24)

•      Rockin’ Chair (’29)

•      Russian Lullaby (’29)

•      Say It With Music (’21)

•      Sentimental Me (’25)

•      Sheik of Araby (’26)

•      Shine (’24)

•      Side by Side (’27)

•      Softly As in a Morning Sunrise (’28)

•      Somebody Loves Me (’24)

•      Someone to Watch Over Me (’26)

•      Sometimes I’m Happy (’25)

•      The Song Is Ended (’27)

•      Stardust (’28)

•      Strutting with Some Barbecue (’28)

•      S’posin’ (‘29)

•      ‘S Wonderful (’26)

•      Sweet Georgia Brown (’25)

•      Sweet Lorraine (’28)

•      Sweet Sue (’28)

•      Tea for Two (’24)

•      There’s Be Some Changes Made (’21)

•      Thou Swell (’28)

•      What Is This Thing Called Love? (’29)

•      What’ll I Do (’24)

•      When the Red, Red Robin (’27)

•      When You’re Smiling (’28)

•      With a Song in My Heart (’29)

•      Who’s Sorry Now (’23)

•      Why Do I Love You? (’27)

•      Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby (’25)

•      Yes, We Have No Bananas (’23)

•      You’re the Cream in My Coffee (’28)

•       You Took Advantage of Me (’28)

Techno Therapy

Why do I continue to be so optimistic about the human experiment in the face of every reason to the contrary? Of course, the endless wars and emotional/sexual/ physical abuse and drug/alcohol addiction and a political game that has the worst pieces on the board ascending to power and money, money, money always running the show. But the thing that’s on my mind at the moment is the relentless fantasy that machines will save us, our refusal to understand that technology does not solve the issues of the human soul and in fact, often further shuts down our humanitarian promise. 

 

What does it take to understand that each new step forward in technology is often a step backward in a healthy humanity? We “save labor” so our bodies don’t have to work so hard and then have to compensate with trips to the gym. We look for connection on our devices but end up feeling more disconnected and lonelier than ever and have to compensate with trips to the therapist, who has us talking about our mother instead of saying, “Shut your damn phone off and go out and hug a tree!” We choose Smartboards and AI to enter our classrooms and create less smart children incapable of accessing their NI (natural intelligence). In short, we create new problems and then try to solve them with further technologies or machine-like thinking, all of which take more time and cost more money. 

 

Just as we now have summer camps to de-program our kids from electronic addiction, I’m imagining we’ll have techno-therapists whose sole job is to help us cope with a world run by machines. (I also imagine that AI therapy will rise and we’ll be sitting in room talking to robots.). If you know of someone already practicing techno-therapy, give me his/her/ their phone number/ e-mail/ Facebook messenger account because I’m in need. 

 

While loving much about Portland and Seattle, I was so happy to come back to my beloved San Francisco— until I remembered that we have been invaded by a foreign entity colonizing our streets like Russian tanks. I can’t walk/ bike ride/ drive one block without seeing one and then another and then four more and I don’t know how to cope with it. 

 

Imagine that there’s a person in your life who you haven’t been able to forgive for some hurt they did to you, someone you’d walk to the other side of the street to avoid if you saw them coming. (Thankfully, I can only think of one person out of the thousands I know in that category.) Now imagine that every time you go out, there they are and that they’ve cloned themselves so 900 of them are wandering around your once cherished neighborhood. Can you picture how you might feel your life has been ruined? After my initial “Home to San Francisco!” happiness, it’s back to “FUCK!!! I had forgotten! Get the hell out of my face!!!!”

 

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about Waymo. As they began to multiply, I gave the finger to each one I passed. Of course, the driver isn't bothered because THERE IS NO DRIVER!! But maybe the passengers might wonder what my issue is and begin to think twice before ordering the next. NOT! OF course, they won’t. But it was a way for me to vent my anger at this next sign that the move to replace human beings is gaining ground. 

 

Then I thought, “This is ridiculous. The Waymo makers and supporters don’t care and I’m the one who’s losing.” So I briefly tried blessing someone I knew in need every time I saw one and that really did help for a while. But now I’m back to the finger therapy. 

I am so deeply sad and outraged that they’re in my neighborhood and throughout the city I’m trying hard to still love. I know everyone will just tell me, “Get over it. They’re here to stay. Don’t let it bother you.” But I don’t want to accept it. Back to the St. Francis/ Angela Davis dichotomy: One says “Accept that which you cannot change,” the other says, “Change that which you cannot accept.” 

 

        HELP!!!!