This song – though to call it simply a song seems to be remarkably weak – was written by a New York Jew curiously enough, as a protest to the lynchings that were all too common in the southern states of the USA earlier in the 20th Century.
Abel Meeropol, who wrote this remarkable song as a poem in 1937, wrote it as a result of seeing the famous photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana in the early 30’s, and then put his poem to music at the request of a number of his friends, and his wife gave it its first public performance in New York.
The other day I was reminded of this incredible phenomena, El Sistema, in which kids all over Venezuela receive a musical education outside their schools, with an emphasis on kids in the poorer sections of Venezuela such as slums and villages.
As you can see from this video, these kids are obviously having a total ball playing their music. Such energy and exuberance is so good to see.
Many years ago while I was Production Manager at the Roundhouse Theatre in London, we did a whole series of concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Pierre Boulez(a delightful man to work with by the way), but what struck me most forcibly about the musicians was their apparent boredom with what they were playing – it was obviously all a matter of rote for them. I found the same attitude with most of the other major orchestras I also worked with in those years.
So watching these kids playing, laughing their heads off, swaying and obviously truly enjoying what they are doing is so refreshing, and to my mind what playing music should be about.
Since arriving in Brisbane, and no longer being able to spend my free time scuba diving as I did every few days whilst living in Cebu (more about this in another post), I looked around for some other free time activity that would be amusing and might bring me into contact with other friendly souls. Oh, and not cost me a load of money too – important when you are an old retired geezer like me.
Happily one day a friend took us to the Brisbane Jazz Club one evening, and apart from enjoying the music, I discovered that one could work there as a volunteer – what is commonly called a “Volly” here in Australia.
So I promptly signed on as a volunteer, without having the slightest idea what the work of a volunteer actually consisted of.
Well, I discovered this pretty quickly when Rita, the dauntingly efficient President of the club gave me her training course.
Rita is a lady who takes the way the club and its staff present themselves very seriously, so I was initiated into the correct way to set up the tables – Cold water bottle to the left of the Table number card, glasses, upside down to the left of the bottle, and in line with it… and so on.
What the work actually consists of is setting up the room before the club opens, welcoming people to the club, showing them to their tables, telling them where the lavatories are and other useful information, and generally being friendly. And then through the evening ensuring that they have enough cold water to drink and that they are happy and content. And then at the end of the evening, clearing everything away and setting it up for the following evening’s crew. Basically a sort of glorified waiter.
I have discovered a website that anyone who loves the music of Bach simply has to visit and keep track of.
It is called All of Bach, which is a very reasonable description of what they are setting out to do – i.e perform and record the entire works of Bach and to bung them onto the internet for us to enjoy.
So far they have finished about 55 of his works, ranging through massive choral works, such as the Mathew Passion, through pensive cello suites and splendid organ works and a range of his Cantatas, all performed with enormous love, pleasure and professionalism.
So, 55 done, only another 1030 to go, more or less.
Currently they are producing videos at the rate of one a week, bit occasionally they manage a couple more as well.
So who are these Bach Fiends?
Not surprisingly, they are in fact a group of musicians who specialise in the music of good old Bach, the Dutch Bach Society, and I can do no better then to quote fully from their given reasons for this epic undertaking, so here they go……..
OZTHOUGHTS 