MY SATURDAY!

Last night was cool. After attending the Car Show and snapping photos of the new Mustang GT and Dodge Charger and Ford GT 40 Coupe, I caught Sir Roger Norrington and the Cincinnati Symphony with the following concert program: Vaughan Williams: FANTASIA ON A THEME BY THOMAS TALLIS (1910); Haydn: SYMPHONY NUMBER 104 IN D MAJOR London; Beethoven: SYMPHONY NUMBER 7 IN A MAJOR, OPUS 92 (My very favorite). In heavy stopped traffic, people have to view a nut in a mini-SUV in front or behind them "conducting" without a baton as I blast the 7th on my CD player! Maybe I am naive. As I told a dear friend of mine, the "definitive" Beethoven 7th for me is Bernstein's "Final Concert" CD on the Deutsche Grammophone CD label when Leonard was at the end of his life. "Records and Review" gave it a fantastic rating. Sir Roger, on the other hand was different. He was so animated and humorous when some concert-happy people clapped after the First Movement! He turned around and raised an eyebrow with a smile and the whole concert hall laughed. No damage done. Hell, someone may have been at their first symphony concert and showed some "appreciation". After the Second Movement when the violators repeated their enthusiasm, Sir Roger did say: "Sorry, all!" I was in Row 6. He appeared by comparison, sparse, compared to Kerri-Lynn Wilson with his style of conducting, and quite often I felt like I was watching two television sets side-by-side: one with a 5 second delay and the other is in "Real Time". Well, it seemed Sir Roger was in "Real Time" but the symphony was on "delay". The tempo and overall interpretation under Sir Roger was a bit disappointing. But overall, he was a Joy! He was even into a sort of "Lenny dance" in the Beethoven, but he as I said, rushed through the 2nd and 3rd movements that sounded trunkated to Lenny's performance brought about a truly rollicking Finale that attacked "flat out" the way Steve McQueen was told to drive his Porsche at the very end of the movie "LeMans". Everyone has their own interpretation. I'm loyal to Lenny even though he was so ill at Tanglewood that night when the mobile recording units captured the performance. Sir Roger was otherwise delightful and for all intents and purposes this is only my opinion. In the future, I look forward to hearing this same favorite piece of music from other Guest Conductors. But again, Sir Roger was a pure delight and had a whimsical sense of humor that had me beaming. His personality was infectious!

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Afterwards, a cool friend of mine who sings in a Piano Bar part-time released a CD and I wanted to be there to support her. If she gives me permission, I'll share her name and website if she has one. She sings the same big band standards I sang for 3 years at two piano bars in Texas. So we swapped CD's. I traded an extra copy of JIM WEST's "Finished Business" and she gave me hers. We laughed about Cyndi Lauper's ' concert here when Cyndi sang an encore from the balcony between a couple seated there, because my friend sang to recorded accompaniment sitting on a bar rail for "mood". We laughed over a drink and I moved on to the British Pub and who did I run into? Bill and his lovely wife Cathy!

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Many of you may recall over the late part of last summer, I met an amazing man who was the first black Principal and later Superintendent during the violent 1960's of two high schools--two of the toughest high schools in Cincinnati! And what's most impressive, he turned both schools around long before Joe Clark! He'd walk the halls with a raised fist to "The Black Panthers" and walk a few more yards and give a "Peace Symbol" to the "Hippies". In short, Bill was a Leader; he was Everybody's Principal. Unfortunately, there aren't enough men like Bill in our world. He'd walk the streets after school let out at 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. everyday just to make sure the area merchants were not being harassed by the kids and that they in turn, were not harassing the kids. Bill went on to become a top-notch business consultant for a large company and I sought his advice on my upcoming travels to different cities. I feel so blessed to know friends like Bill and our mutual friends at the Pub! Yes we miss Jane from England badly. But we still have Paul, who makes us both feel like Hollywood movie stars whenever we come in! That's better than fame!! Great friends!!!

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By the way: Welcome a Genuine Legend to my site whom I've Blogged about and plan to repeat next week: JIM WEST.

Ciao for now!