An empty room. The chairs are up on the tables. The bartender is drying the last few glasses and from a darkened corner of the stage can be heard two or three inquiring notes from a sax.. The bartender closes his eyes, smiles and tips his head a little to the right.

In that momentary soothing strain of the horn, a hundred things happened unawares to the bartender listener. Hidden in shadows, in darkened corners of the room and the invisible colors all around, the strain of the horn had obscured a hundred instrument cases popping open, deep breaths being taken, and a momentous shuffling of many feet. And then, suddenly, there was this: http://www.soundsonline.com/soreg/ram.cgi/cd_audio_demos/105480.ram

"It's quarter to three,
There's no one in the place except you and me...."

…and Dave Brubeck and Jelly Roll Morton on keyboards, Bix Beiderbecke on trumpet, Prez (Lester Young) on tenor sax, Benny Goodman on clarinet, Charlie Mingus on bass, Gene Krupa on drums and Lee Wiley on vocals.

The bartender found a chair and lit a cigarette. There was no ring under his glass when he lifted it and he thought, “how agreeable Sunday mornings were.”

Chap! Great ensemble there! I haven't thought about Lee Wiley in years!
Let's see...another combo (warning: potential major rabbit trail!) could be
Monk on piano, Max Roach on drums, Paul Chambers on bass, 'Trane and/or Ben Webster on tenor, Bird and/or Paul Desmond on alto, Diz on trumpet; and Betty Carter and Eddie Jefferson on vocals...

Braling II,
Am still checking out that rabbit trail. Thump.

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Nineteen-seventy-nine, Disneyland at night, my son sitting on my shoulders while I stand in the crowd watching “The Main Street Electrical Parade”. The music precedes it in the speakers hidden in the trees. Floats and characters of all kinds pass by and then…a platoon of toy soldiers. A bunch of college students dressed as toy soldiers marching in strict military unison, rigid, looking strait ahead. Then, just as they are about to pass my son and I they do an eyes-right, seemingly directly at us, still in rigid military unison and on down the street.

Two-thousand-six, an actor running across a soundstage street, totally in character, intense expression on his face, no time to waste, (run, Clark, run), pulling his shirt open to reveal a big red “S”.

Kudos to all who demean themselves and work so hard to put a smile on the face of the kids and their parents.

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How about "The Banana Man" who occasionally appeared on "Captain Kangaroo"?

I guess you’re referring to Sam Levine. The only time I saw The Banana Man was on Ed Sullivan and it wasn’t Levine. He was tall, thin and talked very fast. I remember him as being one of the characters on one of the Phil Silvers shows. When he was the Banana Man he would pull lots of stuff out of his pockets and emit a very long WOW sound.

I suspect that my memory is really messed up here. I’m probably confusing the Banana Man character with a comedic magician.

"Wow!,Heh-heh!"

Apparently, Levine took up the Banana Mantle from A. Robins, and it was he whom we remember seeing on Captain Kangaroo.

http://facweb.furman.edu/~rbryson/BananaMan/BananaHistory.html

http://www.charliethejugglingclown.com/BananaMan.htm

Chap 31, fine musical giants on your list!

Many years ago, I had the honor of being in the audience when Dave Brubeck performed in the small mountain village of Saranac Lake, NY. The venue was a church with magnificent acoustics, and the setting was arranged so as to create a theater-in-the-semi-round. Approximately 400 people were present. Thus, it had a personal and comfortable atmosphere from the outset.

He performed with his sextet for about an hour and a half, with his sons on drums and bass. Two pieces will always stay with me; first, his trademark extended version of "Take Five" to close the initial set. The crowd knew his music well and was really into the selections he had included for the concert.

In the second portion of the evening's performance, he was accompanied by a small group of strings and a full choral group (maybe 35-40 members). Everyone was in tuxedo or formal dress. They concluded the night's performance with the most amazing musical rendition I have ever experienced. It was a word for word interpretation of "CHIEF SEATTLE'S 1854 ORATION."

When the piece ended (about 20 minutes, as arranged by Mr.Brubeck), there was a breathless pause. No one applauded for several moments. It was not an awkward delay, really. Rather, it was an awe-inspired regrouping by everyone in the assembly.

Then, the entire crowd seemed to rise to its feet in unison and the applause began. It was prolonged and dignified as an expression of appreciation for what had been witnessed. Many of the members of the choral group had obviously been moved to tears. DB had to take two additional bows to quiet the crowd, singers and musicians still joining in with the audience.

(He played gently, a skilled reader did the text, and the choral group recanted each portion completed by the former. If you can picture this as explained, it may shed some light on the actual speech of 1854.)

RE:
http://www.ecomall.com/activism/chief.htm

Uh, sorry to shed a more revealing, but deflating, light on that speech there, Butch:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.htm

BUT, Brubeck is great. Whst IS real and VERY moving is his interview in the Ken Burns "Jazz" film series.

Having been in the "biz", I've seen and met lots of great musicians. I'll have to tell you sometime about a couple afternoons spent with Dizzy Gillespie!

Amazing BrII! In any event, the spirit of the passage was powerfully translated that eve via word and music. I am sure Chief Seattle would have been very pleased! I had never heard of this before.

I do recall DB's comments being quite profound on the Jazz series. But, refresh our memories?? I have actually seen him in concert on three occasions and have been gratified by each event.

I believe it was within the context of the subject of "integrated" jazz bands. Dave was recalling a conversation he had with his father on their ranch. As best I can recall, his father asked one of his friends/ranchands to open his shirt and show the young Dave the scars left by beatings he took as a slave. Dave nearly breaks down in the retelling.

dandelion,
I forgot to mention, that was a nice breezy segue you put in on the 2nd.