Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[bk]

Well, you've read the notes, the notes had one story from the naked city, and now it is time for you to post until the naked cows come home.

[bk]

And the word of the day is: CYNOSURE!

[George]

Happy Birthday to occasional DR lechienfou!

[bk]

VERY occasional.  Too busy posting political diatribes on Facebook

[George]

VERY occasional.  Too busy posting political diatribes on Facebook

Ahh.  We're not friends there, so I wouldn't know that.

[bk]

Listening to symphony 10 - magnificent and VERY long work - almost seventy minutes - choral work that is right up there with Carmina Burana and a few solos, but mostly stunning orchestra - beautiful.  Probably won't get beyond that tonight, which leaves eleven and twelve for tomorrow.

[FJL]

Happy Birthday to occasional DR lechienfou!

Same from here in New York!

[Michael]

Good morning to all

[FJL]

TOD:  to the best of my memory, the first time I was really aware of who Gershwin was seems to be the TV production of "Of Thee I Sing" that starred Carroll O'Connor and Cloris Leachman.  It was very heavily promoted, and in a way an indirect introduction to the breadth of his work, but that got me looking for more and more Gershwin.

[FJL]

That was in 1972, so says imdb.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218483/

[elmore3003]

Good morning, all!

[elmore3003]

In 45 minutes I will head out to 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue for my eye appointment.  Since my only bus route is down Fifth Avenue, I'm leaving myself plenty of time.  I have no idea how dreadful the traffic around Trump Tower will be.

[elmore3003]

Once I'm home, I hve few plans today.  I have work on a score, and some tidying to do.

[elmore3003]

Between 1983 and 1990, I worked for the Gershwins quite a lot.  Leonora Gershwin was very kind to me, and she gave me a drawing by George as an opening night gift around 1988.  My best Gershwin experience may have been the centennial Brooklyn Academy of Music-WNET Gershwin Celebration with Michael Tilson Thomas, Orchestra of St Lukes, and a wild menagerie of talent: Rosemary Clooney, Larry Kert, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Walken, Chita Rivera, Mikhail Baryshnokov, Leonard Bernstein, Johnny Green, and a lot more.

[elmore3003]

Worst Gershwin experiences:
  1. a Los Angeles Music Theatre production of Strike Up the Band, directed by a rude, arrogant ass whose name I've gratefully forgotten, with an unpleasant Tom Bosely as the star.  He was nice to no one, although in retrospect I suspect he was pissed at his agent for getting him into the mess. On the other hand, Donny Most, Avery Schreiber, Fay deWill, and Kirby and Beverly Ward were wonderful.  I also liked the romantic leads, whose names I no longer rememeber.
  2.  being sacked from the infamous Roxbury Recording project after the first recording by a rat, my former best friend, who sacked me as soon as he stole the crown from the person originally in charge pf the project.

More to follow in the memoirs!

[ChasSmith]

Good morning, all.

[ChasSmith]

A day at home, and plenty to work on here.

[ChasSmith]

Had a dream about preparation for a show that I was only superficially involved with; a Dali-ish drooping laptop or iPad that wasn't functioning properly and was also in need of a good cleaning; the laying out of food or snack items; and a female music director friend who had put on about a hundred pounds and shaved her head, but kept putting on an ill-fitting wig.  This was all in one dream.

It's good to be awake.

[John G.]

Good morning, all.

[John G.]

Happy birthday, lechienfou!

[ChasSmith]

And another Happy Birthday to DR lechienfou who does not grace us with her presence as much as she oughta!

[John G.]

I don't know when my first Gershwin experience was. I seemed to have memories of songs like "S'Wonderful" and "I Got Rhythm" that go way back, thanks to commercials. I think the first Gershwin movie I saw was An American in Paris, which I loved back then. I'm not as crazy for it now as I was then, though the musical numbers still entice.

[John G.]

Got a CAT scan this morning. I remember that they've changed the location, but I don't remember where the new place is. And it's too early to find out. The answering service doesn't have any info like that on hand. So, here's hoping I find the place.

[John G.]

My sister sent over a recent photo of Mom and Dad.

[ChasSmith]

I've always credited my first exposure to Gershwin to the Porgy and Bess movie which I was fortunate to have been taken to on its first run.

We subsequently got some no-name recording of same which was probably execrable.  I wore it out just the same.  But the first Gershwin recording that had a real impact on me was a mono copy of the Mercury LP of Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F with Hanson and Eugene List.  With that I became obsessed with the Concerto.  Because I didn't know any better at the time, I acquired the solo piano arrangement and played around with that, and with my mother's old piano solo copy of Rhapsody in Blue.  A few years later I talked my piano teacher into coaching me on those two (from the proper scores).

A year or two after the Porgy film, we saw An American in Paris, further cementing my love for Gershwin and introducing me to the incredible, indescribable, one and only Oscar Levant.

[ChasSmith]

What a nice picture, DR John G.

[Druxy]

TOD:

Since I was probably 5 or 6 when THE JOLSON STORY was first released, most likely my first exposure to Gershwin was Larry Parks as Jolson singing "Swanee."

[Druxy]

Last night, we watched a movie on the free HBO weekend: RACE.

It's the story of Jesse Owens.  Very good film.

[Kerry]

 :-|Good Morning!  It's cold and wet from the rain we had last night.  I so not feel like going out in it.

[John G.]

Send the rain this way, DR Kerry. Please.