"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong." on Ella

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Song Book

There is something like home in this collection that I am regretting lending but listening to in clips from the net today. Stayed out of work for rest after a night of "facing physical limits", an upcoming exciting poor sad me post. I lent this CD out last month and I think it's really gone, but no matter, I am glad my friend has it. Reorder....

My mother loved to sing. She was a wonderful singer.
A contralto, on the radio in Richmond, VA in her "day" and for the phone company in my baby/toddler/little bit days.
The phone company had an orchestra in Richmond Va, she sang with in a theater funded by Mr. Sauer. He was a condiment company owner. She saw Sinatra there at a Tobacco Festival. She said he was a kid with salt and pepper hair in 1951 (before my time). She saw a lot of things actually on 40 dollas a week. in times when everything wasn't just about what money buys. Besides all of her degrees (BA Social Work, Accounting Masters, Public ADmin.) and putting my father through his PHD so he was spared working, she worked years for the phone company as an operator and sang for them. Somehow, when I was young it just was the "story of who she was." Along with being able to fly a plane and unable to drive a car. And a bit not there in a certain way. And she loved the Rodgers and Hart tunes.

So while I recall growing up with certain remarkable and interesting variations on "normal" (like everyone does, but, perhaps I might prove this out to be a bit like a vein of Tennessee Williams- if I were to chose to pursue it in a story of mom...my grandmom's 2nd cousin I remind anyone willing to climb that family tree was that Williams)....I thought being sung "Bewitched" or "Mountain Greenery"(what lovely phrasing) as a night time, bedtime ritual quite ordinary.

Mountain Greenery

On the first of May, it is moving day,
Spring is here, so blow your job,
Throw your job away!

Now's the time to trust,
To your wanderlust,
In the city's dust you wait, must you wait
Just you wait.......!

In a mountain greenery,
Where God paints the scenery
Just two crazy people together.

While you love your lover,
Let blue skies, be your cover-let,
When it rains we'll laugh at the weather.

And if you're good,
I'll search for wood,
So you can cook... while I stand look-in'

Beans could get no keener reception in a beanery
Bless our mountain greenery home!

Mosquitoes here,
Won't bite you dear,
I'll let them sting, me on the finger!

Each night I have my tunes to coast off. It's time to visualize those I care for, being happy. That's what love is like that fast break of words ...."in my mountain greenery where God paints the scenery.." Nice, these days of spring.
Go to sleep with a love song. Easy with Ella. Listen to Where or When, my absolute favorite of hers. So soft.
I did this singing too for my girls/son thinking it "the thing to do as a mother", after my mom. We model and are deeply affected by the model of a mother. Can barely separate her from Moon River. But I'm without that beautiful rich voice more as a cookie singing. I have a voice of a Twix Bar. Not the same. Very few baby ovations. Mom's song phrasing probably borrowed from Ella Fitzgerald who, in this collection, simply makes me feel like I landed in a silk scarf.
If I Could Only do this..

I teach 1st grade. On Valentines Day I taught them, My Funny Valentines which Ella makes so wistfully enchanting. The way she hits 'sweet' ...boy. It's nice to sit and listen to anytime. Each day is Valentines Day...we had fun with it. Or I thought so, but my tummy hurt, by night i had a kind of nightmare. (More bad cancer realities intruding into my well loved ordinary days).
I actually think for young kids singing with a woman it is somehow easier, but it's just a theory...which on the surface this particular tune is a bit sad but...it was pretty enough to us. It carried something I was feeling then. The next day or so I was out sick, again. If I do nothing else I try to teach the songs I grew up loving. Some say, what is she doing in there? Is that "doing her own thing?" Is that in the adopted curricular kit? Others kind of wonder what Standard this is. My answer...the Old Standards. Rodgers and Hart are among my older Standards, the ones we used to recall when we "planned instruction" considering life. Now replaced by a workbook. If you want to learn language try some music...but I suppose that's not clear enough to the everyone who seem more comfortable with rote. The Bush-o-holics we have to thank for this agenda of "improvement". Not only can you no longer afford music, you can't hear it in school either. At least in my hood. When you consider the roots of the music that's almost the most amazing thing I can imagine. The death of culture rising from who we are, remarkable. I suppose like bees and oxygen the assumption is we will go buy it.

Ella sings these Rodgers and Hart songs on Verve and it's delightful. And I personally feel you can bubble in next year in 2nd grade so I play some of them, next year for my kids when this kind of thing will be firmly eradicated in the "schools of the future" notions. Music, who has time for that...Enough...I like a little romance.

One of my students asked me yesterday to hear..the one about the flying plates...it took me so long to connect that to "I Wish I were in Love Again". Sometimes when we do math facts pages I play one of these tunes and then as it finishes "time is up'. I suppose that's not so legit but actually it works for us.It's my timer of a sort, generally a three minute timed test. I like to hear "With A Song In My Heart", "Manhattan"-especially love that piece and here it's so beautiful. "My Romance", "I Didn't Know What Time It Was". I'm realizing Mom sang very romantic ballads to me in my little bunk bed sleeping softly up in Madison Wisconsin. She had I'm sure lots of inner life too.

Music brings you mind images, sweeps over the things that are so hard. I rarely find containers and places to sit my worries. In this collection, when I sing the songbook in my little private corner of my heart I boundary up all the real and all the sadnesses. By the time Ella brings me through these I'm back home, another time, there in that cozy bed waiting for life to happen again. Heart filled with joy and love, held in a kind of place that is better for her. So much better.

My momma can't sing these anymore. And I know better than to dream. But if I were buying a collection, for me, this would be a great one to sing to the joy of loving in a life.


For Lesson plans...Smithsonian Jazz Class...American Masters (look through this file it is incredible)...National Music Foundation...

Jazz and World War II: A Rally to Resistance, A Catalyst for Victory