Forgotten Daddy

1.
I’ll bet you haven’t even heard of Philip James, the ‘classical composer.’ Well here he is, my ‘Daddy.’ He was an old, OLD man. Here he is with my Mom; I was just a teenager:

I cried and unfortunately I craved his death. Oh, he was a great old man, truly great, and funny…

but TIME passed away…

He died, and I was utterly broken.

Ah, the old days! I am remembering a couple of things about him, hints about what it was like in the thirties and forties…

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Ah yes, Gunther Schuller, and Milton Babbitt, and Bernard Herrmann – the ‘old days’ –

Composer Gunther Schuller would have turned 100 – he died in 2015. Now for those who are unfamiliar with him he was a classical and jazz composer, a conductor, a horn player, an author… He recorded with Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, and he got a couple of Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize, and a MacArthur Award, and…

As a youth Gunther attended school in NY, the Saint Thomas Choir School. He went for years, learning music. I wanted to read more about him, so I started reading his book from 2011, Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty. And WOW: it mentions my father on NUMEROUS occasions! For instance:

That is where my ability to sight-read anything, even highly chromatic or atonal works—most notably in several of Seth Bingham’s and Philip James’s compositions—often resulted in my being the only boy left singing after some ten or fifteen bars.

Or:

When we were handed a new piece, I could tell at a glance whether I’d like it or not by scanning the pages to see if it had lots of accidentals. If it was devoid of these, I knew it was one of those white-note compositions, and that it would be boring. Conversely, I got very excited when, occasionally, we were given highly chromatic pieces, even mildly atonal ones. I much preferred the more harmonically modern anthems and services of Philip James — especially his beautiful, poignant By the Waters of Babylon and The Lord is My Shepherd. I really loved these pieces, and if I had at this long distance to say which more or less modern music of the time I admired most at the Choir School it was Philip James’s music. Alas, he is now virtually forgotten.

‘Alas, he is now virtually forgotten.’ 

I’m left wondering about his music. First of all, some of it is ‘church music’ – that USUALLY means ‘proper.’ But not always! I listened to the pieces that Schuller pointed to – oh, they are old, and even churchy – and By the Waters of Babylon dates back to the First World War. But it is somehow ALIVE! Yes, ‘beautiful,  poignant’…

Or like Milton Babbitt, a brilliant NYU student of my Dad’s, who later won just what Gunther Schuller won: a Pulitzer Prize and the MacArthur Fellowship. He would talk about how exciting everything had been. I’ll put on a recording of Babbitt talking about Dad, in an interview with Charles Amirkhanian:

Or like Bernard ‘Benny’ Herrmann:

‘Hitch and Benny’

He was Daddy’s professor of composition and conducting at NYU. Benny wrote the music for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo, and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver… well, a whole LOT of stuff! Daddy led Benny’s first radio performance of his work, and they both conducted each other’s works throughout the thirties and forties. 

Tuesday mornings on CBS radio, in school: Bernard Herrmann conducting, Alan Lomax and Philip James commenting. Lomax had as guests Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Lead Belly…

Here Benny conducts a concert with first performances by Henry Cowell, Charles Ives, and Philip James:

Poor old Daddy! He used to limp around our house. He would sometimes be composing, or sometimes sitting in an armchair with a drink or two and a curious longing look. On the sleek plywood walls were autographs and paintings from the twenties and thirties, and medals from way back in World War 1… and he’d SLOWLY take a walk outside with our miniature dachshund, Seppel…

And to school I’d bring the ONLY LP of Daddy’s music. I was kind of proud of him – but alas, the record was from way back in 1950; it had sold only a few copies…

And once again, stamps. He’d had some sort of music festival in the late forties, and he kept the stamps PROUDLY in a top drawer of his rolltop desk:

2.
We went on vacation, while he was still walking… and I absolutely loved it! And I got the sense that my sister Vivien loves it too.

Well, they weren’t all really vacations: my Daddy would say, on a Saturday or Sunday, ‘Let’s go for a drive!’ Mommy would drive SLOWLY; we’d pass those fancy Brookville mansions – fancy boys were ‘sort of’ schoolmates of mine, at private school – and we’d end up in the beautiful village of Cold Spring Harbor, maybe buying candies, or a snack…

Then we started going on REAL vacations: Philadelphia, DC, the Amish, and the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains. My Mom would be worrying about the stove being left on, and my Daddy was sitting on the passenger side, peeing in a chosen Mason jar. My sister and I were in the back seat, staring in wonder at the ice melting down the mountainsides… Or we’d laugh about how blueberry pie – popular in those roadside days – was leaving a blue stain on my Mom’s teeth.

Or we’d visit France, my Dad’s old hangout. Daddy and I went into a brasserie in Paris: I am 14 but it doesn’t matter that I drink. We are talking like REAL grown-ups, all about the old composers. I have to keep him from falling on the way back to l’appartement… Or we wander into a fancy Paris record store. ALL of the records are of ultra-modern composers, Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, and the customers are young, and smoking Gitanes and Gauloises cigarettes… My father seems somewhat sad, ‘out of his league’…

But back in the US: we traveled to the Rochester premiere of his Symphony #2 in 1967, conducted by Howard Hanson. It was written in 1949 but had never been played; it was loud and even ‘modern’ – I secretly loved it! Ah, my father sitting next to me, listening intently, his arms moving just a little…

This is what Hanson wrote for the American Academy of Arts and Letters, after his death:

Over the years I have conducted many of his works but I came to know him best through a performance of his latest symphony. He was already, as I remember, in his eightieth year, when a former student brought me the news that this work had never been performed. I asked to see the score and immediately arranged for a premiere at our next Festival of American Music in Rochester. He came, with his charming family, for the rehearsals and concert and it was for me a delightful and rewarding experience… [Philip] was a scholar but he was also modest, generous, humane. I hesitate to use the word, but he was a sweet man, in every sense a gentleman. It is not difficult to understand why his students had for him such esteem and affection. He must have been in every respect that unique individual, a great teacher.

I have many, many stories like this. Yes, Daddy, you really TAUGHT me. You taught me how to BE THERE with the sound.

3. 
All right, history, HISTORY -

Daddy was born in 1890, in Jersey City, across the river from Manhattan. His father was Welsh – Daddy loved hearing Welsh melodies all day long! His father was first a locomotive engineer and then, in later years, security at a candy factory. And his mother was German. I saw a photo of where they lived in those years – and poor it was! NEITHER of his parents would spank their kids – it just wasn’t in their cards.

Here he is:

Yes, he loved his ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa,’ as he put it. And Daddy used to tell me about a boy who lit the gas lamps along the street every night – he didn’t use a ladder, but a long metal rod with a wick inside. And he loved how QUIET it became – no sound of cars, none at all!

He read a very popular magazine: St. Nicholas. I still have his old copies! It was written for kids by great writers – Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, etc. – and it never ‘talked down’ to them. It was an adult-kids magazine.

His sister Mildred became a sort of musical teacher to him, she taught him to play violin and piano. Daddy always called her a ‘wonderful teacher.’ 

So he was 17 and he traveled by horse, by train, and by foot all around New Jersey and New York, giving performances on piano and organ – Mr. Philip Wright James. Notice how many ‘horseshoers’ there are:

Daddy had lots of teachers, in harmony, in orchestration… He wrote a letter about his ‘Bach teacher,’ J. Warren Andrews:

The organ loft BREATHED the spirit of the atelier. Here were organists, not simply made, but moulded into artists; for Mr. Andrews was endowed with the rare gift of imparting the secrets of craftsmanship and the love of the beautiful in music. In every student he tried to see the potential artist, and all were received not so much as students but as fellow workers.

Plain spoken, modest, he preferred whenever possible to expound his theories by example. When I first met Mr. Andrews I played for him a rather over elaborate and tawdry French composition. On the completion of my performance, without any comment, he sat down and I listened to his performance of the Bach ‘Passacaglia.’ This simple incident was worth many lessons to me, and many wasted moments of discussion, argument, or explanation.

Philip was listening to performances just about all the time. I have dozens of his programs from back then – for instance the celebrated Gustav Mahler: conducting one year, dead the next.

And Daddy wrote, at first, impassioned romantic anthems and songs. Some of them were Welsh songs, but some of them were oh-so popular, de rigueur, with these titles: Dearie, My Heart Is Like a Sweet-Toned Lute, Little Room o’ Dreams, A Million Little Diamonds, As Now the Sun’s Declining Rays…

He was just about ALWAYS working on music…

…or just plain RELAXING!

And writing: he kept a diary from 1910 on, until his death; yes, we kept them!

For instance, February 4, 1910: ‘My new frock coat and silk hat came to-day.’

Most of Daddy was feeling HISTORY! The diary below for instance: a lesson; meeting with somebody about conducting ‘light operas;’ performing a service at St. Mark’s Church in the Village; and then seeing the famous Triangle Shirtwaist factory burning down a few blocks away, the ‘most awful fire’ and ‘400 girls killed:’

How times have changed! That’s the firetruck used to battle the Triangle Shirtwaist factory… ladders will only reach seven stories high!

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Matinées were VERY popular then, especially for kids – and he loved them! He conducted Snow White and Prunella, with an orchestra, directed by Winthrop Ames in 1912 – 1913. The plays were starring the ‘inimitable’ Marguerite Clark. Later, films would come out; she’d star in them as well.

He was writing his Welsh music too, and Welsh folk songs…

And he composed his Méditation à Sainte Clotilde, a very romantic piece that STILL gets performed.

He started spending his time with the opera singer ‘Miss Celli.’ His diary repeatedly says something like ‘Miss Celli called in the eve and stayed quite a while…’

Then there was ‘Miss Eady,’ as she was known, Miss Millicent Eady:

She was quite a bit older than he was. She was born in England and had a sense of humor – Philip often called her ‘witty.’ She had a partially-built summer house in Amagansett, NY, along the ocean. Here’s a NY Times article mentioning Millicent – kind of bossy!

And they got married at the local ‘Dune Church…’

The two of them worked together on the house – and they built a natural stone chimney.

His horse was named for Lloyd George, the liberal British leader…

…and his very FIRST tag: a Ford Model-T.

They stayed at the summer house for years, and then she died, in 1945. And he kept the house until I was a little kid. He used to tell me how she became “bedridden,” and how he’d read her Victorian novels every evening, Trollope, Hardy, Eliot… And he read an organ piece after she died, his Galarnad, the “book of lamentation” in her memory:

I remember the house, and the walks he would take: an old man walking slowly along the beach, alone, with the endless waves. He must have remembered the days a long, long time ago…

Or he sat me down and talked to me – with a couple of whiskeys, of course. He talked about his time in the Army – I will talk about it later. And the ‘NJSO,’ the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. As a youngster, age 30 or so, he’d started it!

Casals was FAMOUS in his day…

Or he talked about the ‘Broadway scene,’ for instance Victor Herbert, who heard him right out of the Army band and hired him immediately as conductor and musical director. Daddy led the songs and dances for the musical ‘My Golden Girl’: A Little Nest for Two, Ragtime Terpsichore, I’d Like a Honeymoon with You, The Jazzy-Jazz Dancing Lesson, What Shall We Do If the Moon Goes Out… and they went out afterwords, drinking. Philip claimed that Victor Herbert was indeed a true teacher to him. Unfortunately he died of cirrhosis in about four years.

And Daddy fell fast asleep, snoring like CRAZY...

I snuck up to my stamp collection. Yes, there he was, Victor Herbert –

America’s five ‘Most Famous Composers’ appeared in 1940 – pretty damned old-fashioned! 1 cent Stephen Foster, 2 cent John Philip Sousa, 3 cent Victor Herbert, 5 cent Edward MacDowell, and 10 cent Ethelbert Nevin, ‘known especially for Mighty Lak’ a Rose and Water Scenes.‘

4.
OK, Station WGZBX, and Wales –

I knew he had a radio show way back when, but as I said I hadn’t REALLY heard about it until recently…

Time Magazine wrote in 1932:

Radio gave U. S. music an added puff last week. Philip James of Manhattan won $5,000 for ‘Station WGZBX,’ a midget symphony which ingeniously describes lobby confusion at a studio, interference, ‘static,’ a slumber hour, and microphone hysteria.

And NBC’s Aylesworth presenting a check to James; $5000 was a LOT of money in 1932:

Station WGZBX was supposed to be a ‘semi-popular,’ or popular piece. This was the first contest – here’s how it worked:

573 orchestral manuscripts were submitted (that wouldn’t happen today!) The jury consisted of Walter Damrosch, Leopold Stokowski, Frederick Stock, Tullio Serafin and Nikolai Sokoloff. Five works were finalists and were heard anonymously on an NBC broadcast of May 1st, 1931. From there, 150 selected listeners submitted their choices by telegraph, and the winning composition was played on the radio May 8th, 1932.

There were other radio contests after that, but that was the very first. And Leopold Stokowski sent Dad a letter:

I enjoyed conducting your work and hope you will let me conduct another some day. I especially enjoyed the great beauty and depth of feeling of the third movement and the plastic quality of all four movements. It is a pleasure to find an American composer who has freed himself from the academic dogmas of form and has the power to create his own forms.

Check out what Daddy has to say below – Boston Symphony, 1932. It’s kind of funny – especially at the end, the instrumentation:

Thomas A. DeLong’s book had this to say:

James considered radio work the finest school, technically, for the embryonic American conductor and orchestral musician. ‘We must look to our radio stations, unorganized and inconsistent as they are in many cases, for an American school of conductors,’ he said in 1936. He became conductor of WOR’s orchestra in 1929 – the first chamber ensemble to broadcast weekly. He made it a point to present one American composer each week.

Well, commercial television was almost here…

…and Daddy didn’t think much of it –

at all!

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Wales! Ah!!!

I remember Daddy waking us up on St. David’s Day. It was a day FULL of smiles, and the Welsh symbol of daffodils and leeks. And of course he had the bright red Welsh dragon hanging up in our hallway:

Well, I LOVED visiting Wales! Our family went to the village of Cwmafan, and there we saw a photograph of Dad’s grandfather and his tiny row-house, in the 1840s:

And that is the house where Daddy’s father was born, in 1850.

Daddy wrote beautiful Welsh modal melodies: Gwilym Gwent, The Stranger, Galarnad, Song of the Miners… And he composed Gwalia, the archaic name for Wales, a medley of great old folksongs like The Bells of Abertawe, David of the White Rock, Megan’s Fair Daughter… The melodies are oh-so-Welsh, of men marching toward the deep dark coal mines. 

In the fifties Scranton Pennsylvania was loaded with Welsh people – it’s worth reading:

And this: I was named Philip Dylan James at the time of birth, after the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas had just died. My father loved his poetry and kept biographies of him, stored in his Collected Poems:

Well goodbye Daddy… my forgotten Daddy…

( …and HELLO. Hello hello HELLO! )

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Memorable Mommy – and my poems

Helga (‘Mommy’) was working toward a Master’s degree in musicology at New York University; my father was her Professor of Music.

Her family was German and Jewish. They lived in beautiful Berlin, with just one child. Her father was an obstetrician and a bit of an amateur moviemaker. Ah, the playful times, and young Helga! This shows what life was LIKE for her in Germany, until the Second World War:

Well, the airplanes seemed a bit ominous…

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum had this to say:

Helga’s paternal grandmother Julie Bujakowski was deported by the Nazis to Theresienstadt on June 17, 1942; she perished at the age of 83. Hans’ brother Fritz, with his wife Else, and young son Walter were deported to Auschwitz where they perished in 1943. Another brother, Kurt, who had worked as an editorial assistant fled to Vienna in 1936 to escape the Nazis. He, his wife Dina and daughter Stephanie (“Steffi,” b. 1937) then immigrated to France after the Anschluss; from there they were deported to their deaths in Auschwitz on September 9, 1942.

[Helga] attended German public schools until Jewish students were expelled. She left Germany in August 1938, with her parents [Hans and Augusta], then sailed to the United States and arrived that September.

So Fritz and Else and Walter and Kurt and Dina and Steffi and Julie were ‘perished,’  i.e. killed, probably by gas. So many deaths, so many deaths:

Grandmother Julie, Uncle Kurt, Aunt Dina, and Helga…

…proud parents!

‘Steffi’ …

…and Helga’s ‘Onkel Fritz’ in Berlin, 1937 – all, ALL dead…

Helga and her parents moved to Freeport, a suburb of New York. Her father changed his name from Hans Adolph Bujakowsky to Henry A. Boyer – he copied the actor’s name, Charles Boyer. And she became Helga Boyer, too.

Helga was married to a fellow NYU student, Bill Shank, from 1948 until 1951. Like Bill, she did NOT believe in killing, even Nazis. Bill wrote:

I really had made up my mind that I was not going to go into the Army, that I had a philosophical objection to war, that I felt that war was immoral, that I thought it was futile, that I thought it was evil, and that I just didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

Bill had been to the ‘conscientious objector’ camp in Waldport, Oregon. Steve McQuiddy wrote a wonderful book called Here on the Edge, the Story of Waldport:

…Pacifists and political objectors to World War II spent their daylight hours planting trees, crushing rock, building roads, and fighting forest fires—fifty hours a week, for no pay. At night, they published books, produced plays, and made art and music… They called themselves the Fine Arts Group at Waldport, and their focus was not so much on the current war, but on what kind of society might be possible when the shooting finally stopped.

Bill finally left Walport and ended up at NYU. And that’s when it ALL started, with Helga. They were both taking music classes, were both music majors at New York University. They were pacifists. And they got married. I haven’t the slightest idea where they lived; it was DEFINITELY poor. She always spoke of restaurant jobs, laughing and getting fired, and cold-water apartments, tiny places in Greenwich Village…

Helga got her Master’s and she took another orchestration class. She says Philip smiled at what she had composed ‘Russian-style.’ She laughed too, and he wrote at the top of the page ‘An Afternoon in Minsk.’

And she divorced Bill. And married Philip.

There are many speculations about how it happened, but nobody really knows. I don’t think it was for money – that wasn’t what she was like, that wasn’t her. 

I think it’s because she was falling in love, in genuine real love. Yes, he has been, like her, through ALL the wars, through ALL the suffering…

…and I would say they were deeply, DEEPLY in love!

When I was a kid we vacationed, by train, in Daytona Beach. That was where Philip and Helga had to ‘hide out’ for some of the three months required by divorce law. He chose ‘The Tower:’

Here is the ‘risqué’ part of a letter Philip sent her. He almost always called her ‘Helgie,’ or ‘Helshin’ or ‘Helgala’:

Alas, Helga had to stay there by herself for days, renting a motel room. And there were rats: they would chew and chew Philip’s love letters.

She sent Philip her pictures, taken by her neighbor. Always the same dress, standing the same way:

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Helga: there was something broken in her, a sad missingness, a loneliness… I saw it in her eyes!

She was ultra-shy, especially around people at cocktail parties. And nervous. And she was scared of heights, scared of uniforms… and she would very occasionally break down, get worried, and fall on the bed crying.

She despised Nazis, thought they were ‘stupid,’ but strangely she was NOT afraid of them. One day my father decided we’d eat at Lüchow’s, a German-style tourist restaurant. We’d only been there a few minutes before my mother started arguing with the waiter. He was a tall old German man, and he yelled at her ‘I am NOT a Nazi!’

‘Yes you ARE!’ she shouted back, and loudly. Well, she knew he was a Nazi. They never quite died away, those Nazis. They ALWAYS crept in, crying ‘Heil’ to their leader…

Then there is disease, she was ALWAYS getting some slight disease. She usually showed ‘palpitations,’ whatever they were. And I guess I got sick a lot too: mumps, measles, ‘the croup’… But I actually liked it, being sick. My Mom brought me new toys and lots of books, and she smiled at me WONDERFULLY.

Ah, the way she’d loudly sing on three notes, singing that dinner was ready: Vash hands and sit down! [Pause…] Vash hands and sit down!

She ordered a ‘Barber Kit,’ frequently sold in those days – but Helga was NOT an artiste. I was embarrassed as hell, looking like a weirdly irregular mop. I even was called into the principal’s office, where he asked me how I’d gotten the haircut. I said it was at a barber shop in another faraway, faraway town…

I remember Helga loving animals, absolutely LOVING them – dogs in particular. I remember her smiling humanly with ‘Seppel,’ the miniature dachshund in our funny family. Once a minister came over, I don’t know exactly why, but Seppel LEAPT at him and furiously humped his arm, to which we all (including the minister) cracked up. 

Seppel!

Helga and Philip smiled together, too. And they played old four-hand piano pieces composed by Dvořák. I remember one time Helga felt VERY nervous about it, and Philip seemed somewhat annoyed…

But he gave her sentimental perfumes, jewelry, someone’s autobiography, whatever…

And she gave him vests, with pockets to hold his gold chain and pocket watch. One of the vests she gave him was BRIGHT red; he loved it!!

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I was a little boy. I played piano a lot, mainly improvisation… and I guess it was through my mother that I was ‘the poet.’ She read ALL kinds of poetry. And she read Thomas Mann, and Oscar Wilde… and she was learning, on her own, ancient Greek…

I used to run to my room and WRITE. I didn’t hang out with the athletic boys, they would laugh at me. Oh well, tough!

I just found a poem that got printed in the school yearbook. I was nine years old, and I remember writing it: holding the pencil in the air, my eyes searching… 

I would keep on writing poetry a little at a time. I would become an ‘amateur poet.‘

I wrote my first poetry book in 1982, entitled Green Fire. Then my SECOND book is called, snobbishly, The Simple Practice of Revolution: 

The title is questionable.

Then finally These Particulars. I have to admit, it feels REAL to me, yes, its flashes, its brief thoughts… a few pages, handwritten, mimeographed:

I haven’t written by hand over the past fifteen years, thanks to the clawing stroke. That’s life – computer seems the way to go. But there is something delicious about a poised pen or pencil…

It’s because of Mommy that I have become a writer – YEP! Daddy was a musician, but Mommy knew what writing was about!

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Writing, shakuhachi… but damn, I HAD to make money!

A long time ago I worked – for seven or more years – with a software company, Datastorm – ALL about ‘telecommunications.’ I did pretty good at it! But I finally quit, and wrote; this became one of the many books I was writing:

…etc!

Yes, here is what I looked like around then – back when I was learning to fly, of all things, airplanes – and make my own records, and travel around Europe, and study shakuhachi via cassette tape…

Well, I wasn’t happy, although I was making lots of money. I was nervous, frustrated… you can kind-of tell from my expression. And I was just plain annoyed about things… and my MOTHER!

I got divorced, and remarried, settled in Portland, Maine… and I got the stroke, and the second divorce…

What I have NOW is truly amazing. It’s taken years of thinking, thinking. Yes, I have ‘the stroke’ – it has its bad stuff AND its good stuff, mainly good. I play shakuhachi, and I play poetry. And I absolutely love love LOVE the trees and the woods. I am relaxed.

Yes, I am STILL ‘the poet.’ Thank you Mommy!

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Wow, I remember WAY back….

My mom died about five years ago and left me with a bunch of newspaper articles about me, tucked away in an old file. I don’t even know why there are so many articles! For instance this one, 1986, labelled ‘James, his wife and two children tend their garden.’

Phil, Kim, Aaron, and Sierra

Yes, long ago we moved out of Austin to Jamestown MO and bought eleven acres of gorgeous land. We had a ratty old pink trailer, from the sixties, and our usual outhouse. It was a sort-of communist vision, with about eight or so families living there in almost-trailers.

I had a tiller and a chainsaw; I chopped wood; I was an ‘assistant,’ busy chimney-sweeping, painting silver roofs on barns, you name it. Kim was way into midwifery and gardening, and the women talked there… the men didn’t talk very much.

We’d take the car to Columbia MO each Sunday morning. It was about 40 miles each way to the pretty-liberal Unity Church. They paid me $25 – later it turned into a whole $50; I played the hymns AND I’d do a solo, singing and playing a newly composed song each week. Maybe I’d even throw in shakuhachi. 

I kind of believed in ‘Jesus ‘n God’ way back then… and Buddhism… AND fifty dollars! I even put out a tape of some of my ‘Sunday songs,’ called Let It Shine. Ah, quite the amateur, looking all loosey-goosey:

I wrote both lyrics and music. But the tape didn’t include two of the pieces, from the words of Thoreau and Emily Dickinson. I remember performing them, piano and voice, at the church, and at several outdoor festivals. Yes, I still remember the exact words. And it’s strange how I woke up this morning, before the sun rose, and I’m singing these songs joyfully:

Nature – H. D. Thoreau

O Nature! I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy choir, –
To be a meteor in thy sky,
Or comet that may range on high;
Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low;
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do, –
Only – be it near to you!

For I’d rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care;
To have one moment of thy dawn,
Than share the city’s year forlorn.

And Dickinson: AH! She really just knew, she KNEW:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home – 
With a Bobolink for a Chorister – 
And an Orchard, for a Dome – 
 
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice – 
I just wear my Wings – 
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.
 
God preaches, a noted Clergyman – 
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last – 
I’m going, all along.

Ah!!! Yes, I was singing Thoreau and Dickinson on PIANO…

…and what about that GREAT 19th century writer, Walt Whitman? WALT!

Walt was writing his last few words. He’d had a stroke; later he died at age 72. That’s how old and ‘stroked’ I am – 72. But I’ll be damned if I don’t fully accept it. I would have thought it was just bad, this ‘disease.’ Well it’s not, not at all. It’s actually quite wonderful, if I work it right, if I take the right PATH… 

Yes, he knew what he needed: not books, not art, but simply ‘the day and night themselves:’

After the flush, the Indian summer of my life,
Away from Books — away from Art — the lesson learn’d, pass’d o’er —

Now for the day and night themselves — the open air,
Now for the fields, the seasons, insects, trees — the rain and snow,
Where wild bees flitting hum,
Or August mulleins grow, or winter’s snowflakes fall,
Or stars in the skies roll round —
The silent sun and stars…

And slowly, slowly it ALL started making sense… 

I don’t NEED anything else, don’t need a car, don’t need booze… But right now I need to walk for at least several miles a day, around the local graveyard, around trees, and the woods that make ENDLESS sweet noises! 

Walking is what it’s all about, all about. It’s what I DO every day. It’s where I think, THINK, and create, and make sound, and MOVE.

And I make poetry.

And shakuhachi.

It’s where the stroke has left behind its BEAUTIFUL mark.

Life has changed.

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Aargh! I was CONFUSED as hell: school, mother, hospitals…

I was 5 years old and drew this picture, and in 1980 or so I haughtily labeled it ‘untitled, 1959.’ 

It was definitely a she. And she either has humongous ears or angelic wings. I like to think of them as ears, hearing the subtlest of tunes…

And she definitely has an unhappy look on her face, and ten fingers: are they grabbing at something?

Yes, I like to think of her as Mother.

My Dad was just DAD. Oh, I knew he was old, and way old-fashioned, but that was OK… and he was – at first – fun! Here is a movie of him from just before I was born, with my sister Vivien. He looks so young! He calls Vivien ‘Opus One,’ just as he will call me ‘Opus Two.’ And he loves the waves, the beach, the sun…

The ‘crib!’ Yes, you HAD to have a crib in those days. I remember crawling in it, desperate to get out. Which I DID: I landed outside with a godawful bloody mouth – and I still have the scar!

But my Mom – Mommy – that’s who I have problems with! As I said before, there was something broken in her, at least at first…

I feel curious AND confused. I would come back to that mixed-up feeling over and over, even as an adult…

The four of us lived first in a small but cushy apartment; our windows overlooked the Macy’s Parade. I couldn’t quite figure out what that last balloon was, an astronaut OR a deep-sea diver:

Yes, it was Thanksgiving. We had guests over: Nancy and Ray and teen-aged Veronica, they were distant relatives of Dad. Ray and Dad talked and laughed, and Nancy – she was British – rode our hobbyhorse while singing ‘Ride a Cockhorse to Banbury Cross.’ I loved it! Then we sat and ate, and we were poured a few drops of wine down the hollow stems of our glasses. And it tasted great. I should have known that I would become a drunk.

Then they showed home movies, with their faint SMELL, and Ray would show slides… slides, slides, SLIDES, laugh, laugh, laugh, click, click, click…

Helga had the shyest of looks on her face, and she was pretty damn quiet while Philip Sr. and Ray blabbed and blabbed. I think she felt she would become a ‘whole person,’ if she could just take a couple of deep BREATHS…

That’s what Helga was like back then. She could be absolutely wonderful, and laughing almost hysterically, but then she’d be quiet, or even angry… or she’d get ‘palpitations,’ whatever that meant.

I felt like I had to IMITATE her, without ever understanding the behavior! One afternoon we were going to take the tourist ferryboat around Manhattan, and she suddenly threw a fit, refusing to go. And I threw a fit too. WHY?

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Now it’s Christmas. We’ve moved out to the burbs because of my Dad’s poor health. Our house has a bar inside; it’s pretty damn tacky. And unfortunately, and secretly, I snuck tiny little sips from the bottles…

Christmas 1963, waiting for guests; notice the TV hidden behind the slats…

…or Christmas 1967, me and Mom, and Leopold Stokowski, an autographed friend from the 30’s...

Ah Brylcreem: ‘a little dab’ll do ya!’ 

Helga was a non-practicing Jew, so Christmas didn’t mean a whole lot to her. But for Daddy: AH!!!! He LOVED Christmas! He had to make SURE that the kids got adequate presents: dolls, stamps, a weather station, even LPs of Dylan Thomas reading his poetry. It felt great! Here’s what he wrote in 1913, one of MANY Christmas gifts he sent around at the time:

But Helga?

Helga wasn’t REALLY into Christmas. She’d go lie down after a while. Perhaps she had ‘signs of depression’… and nerves… and I, too, began to feel everything that way, just like her. I’m afraid I was always over-sensitive. I was changing from a child into a cigarette-smoking cynic.

And I’d go to my room and write, write write WRITE!

Aargh! I mean, what do you want? It WAS the sixties!

World War One

Back a few years:

It’s the ‘war machine,’ the twentieth-century male stuff, the airplanes, submarines, bombs, and poisonous cars on all the roads, the whole WORLD getting noisier and noisier…

Daddy was married to his first wife, Millicent, in 1915; then he was drafted in October of 1917. He mailed a Christmas card to friends: Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; east, west, north and south, let the long quarrel cease:

And he wrote in his diary: ‘Sounds unpatriotic but I don’t think I could kill any man no matter how sinful his country.’

musicians – PJ is second from the right

He learns to play the tenor saxophone, and he writes:

April 10, 1918: To-day marks the closing of my first six months in the Army. Quite rough, cold and penetrating. We were nearly frozen. About 50% of the boat are sea sick. I have felt very well although at time a grinding spell comes over me due to the awful conditions of our sleeping quarters. Men packed like sardines on the deck… some of them vomiting all about…

He writes and WRITES:

The dishes and table linen are filthy. Where we sleep is below the steerage (the old baggage hold). Water, dampness, smells, foul air and rats ever-present. At night about 12 a drunken soldier, dirty as an ocean can be, slept next to me and nearly vomited in my face. Coughing, spitting on my pillow until I threw him over on his side…

At 6:30 we played Retreat and gave a little concert: a despondent fellow committed suicide by jumping over board… The sky met the water and the horizon was a harmony of green and pink, the sea is beautiful, not rough and choppy but broad and sweeping like Beethoven’s Eroica or the mighty Fifth...

I was put on deck until nine… In the foam of the sweeping ocean the phosphorus was wonderful. I felt as if I was drifting in a fairy boat, the most lovely clouds and twirling stars… 

And then Philip James lands.

‘Asphixiating shell…’

He adds diary entires right away:

It is interesting to note how we get the facility of telling the difference between shells, bombs and planes by the sounds. It may be a musician’s ear…

I notice the youngsters here all sing our popular songs in English such as ‘They Go Wild, Simply Wild Over Me,’ ‘Over There,’ ‘Darktown Strutter’s Ball,’ etc., but they sing them so quickly and with such rhythm that it makes them sound like old folksongs of France. These children are certainly born with rhythm…

We had been ordered to bury the dead which are still remaining here, and there are hundreds of bodies which have been left for weeks without burial. Sanitation squads have been overworked as well as all the chaplains… About 8:00 in the morning we started in digging graves, making and marking crosses and then burying the men who were principally Germans. I hope I shall forget the horrible sights. Nearly all were in bits from machine gun fire and we had to collect them in blankets, some rotted, some almost skeletons, find their identification tags with long nippers of pliers and finally bury them with prayers etc. The stench was horrible to say the least.

General John Pershing firmly believed that war without music was virtually impossible – and finally he allowed the musicians to simply be MUSICIANS – no more digging graves.

Finally it was over. Glenn Watkins wrote in Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War – 

In April 1919 Philip James returned to the United States as conductor and commanding officer of the Allied Expeditionary Headquarters Band, now known as ‘General Pershing’s Band.’ He led the band on a nineteen-city Victory Loan tour… James’s concerts were wildly received as emblematic of America’s contribution to final victory in the Great War.

He looks so SAD, wearing his ‘Sam Browne’ belt that I used to play with:

Daddy conducting in NYC. He led, among other pieces, his 1917 ‘Colonel Averill March’ – performed here by an Army band in the 1990’s.

At age 80 or so he often poured himself a drink, then sat slowly down and asked me to ‘come over here and talk to me.’  Well, I spoke a little, told him all about school – I was probably in third or fourth grade. But then he talked about composers and especially ‘World War One.’ He talked about Pershing a lot. I think he liked him, in spite of ‘the War.’ He talked and talked… and talked… and I listened. And it was pretty damn interesting. I mean, with a couple of drinks he could smile, and gab, and talk ALL about soldiers, and composers…

Here is just SOME of his diary, when the War was gradually over. The AEF is the infantry, the American Expeditionary Force; the YMCA, or ‘Yhuts,’ provided a place for much of the music.

his wartime conducting…

Tuesday January 14 – 1919 – A big day for Chaumont, for at 10:00 o’clock Marshal Pétain decorated the AEF officers with the decoration of Commander of the Legion of Honor… General Pershing was also present and battalions of French and American soldiers passed in review at the finale to the accompaniment of a poor French band, but after the ceremony our own band gave a fine concert of an hour in length…

Friday January 17th – 1919 – …While at the grocery shop in the evening such a pretty little girl of four sang for us, Madeline, Marseilles, and other ‘chansons populaires.’ She had everybody in convulsions and was as full of confidence as the most professional opera star.

Friday Jan. 31 – 1919 – …Near one YMCA Hut we played at night to an audience consisting principally of officers. There is a large prisoners’ camp of Germans and they assisted us in building and fixing scenery etc. They were all very happy and cordial to the Americans. It was funny to watch a German truck filled with Germans and Americans.

Tuesday February 11 – Busy day. At night I had a dance job for enlisted men at the YMCA, the riotous kind! Good sized orchestra. Piano was too high so I had to transpose everything. Worn out when I got back to barracks…

Wednesday February 13 – Prince of Wales was to have been here today for some decoration but General Pershing’s aide-de-camp (Col. Boyd) died suddenly in Paris and all ceremonies have been called off.

February 16th 1919 – The Prince of Wales here this morning for guard and he seemed to be very much impressed, especially by one drum major, and he seemed to like the other band as well. Orchestra played this afternoon and night for him, at Pershing’s Chateau. Boys told me later he shook hands with them all… he is fond of ragtime and jazz and is a regular fellow.

Monday Feb. 17 – 1919 – Rehearsal in afternoon for this evening’s show after which I had to arrange a song for the evening, ‘Dimples.’ In the evening was the big time, for at 9:00 PM there was a special performance for the Prince of Wales and General Pershing. Generals galore! The Prince sang, whistled, smoked black cigars and enjoyed the show immensely as well as General P. The Prince said it was the best army show he has ever seen. He has certainly captivated the heart of the AEF and I meant to say he is the most democratic army officer I have ever come in contact with.

Tuesday Mar. 11 – Up at 6 to get ready, clean up etc. by the big inspection of the entire post by General Pershing, which took place at 8:00 AM…

Played in the band on my much polished sax and was in three different moving pictures… At night I played in the YMCA auditorium for enlisted men’s dance over which there was a fuss as the YMCA woman in charge stopped the French girls from dancing with them. Ross, the Drum Major, gave YMCA a piece of his mind.

Thurs. Mar. 20 – …Pershing’s Chateau, a beautiful place in such a fine estate. We played for an afternoon reception to the King and Queen of Belgium, at which time many were decorated… then played for the King’s dinner.

Heard lots of rumors about this band leaving for concerts in the States…

Fri. Mar. 21 – 1919 – King and Queen of Belgium present at Guard Mount this AM. I am arranging some new music for the special show which rehearsed in the afternoon for this evening, a special performance for the King and Queen at night. 

[My Dad kept the rose until he died; needless to say, it was a somewhat wrinkled mess…]

Saturday Apr. 5th – Going home! Just as Gen. Pershing was making his wonderful address the crowd around us was madly cheering with the band as they came in the gate. When they saw me they gave one wild cheer and rushing from the ranks and circled me with handshakes and congratulations.

Saturday April 19 – 1919 – The good old Van Steuben arrived in New York Harbor in the morning and we disembarked about noon. After many photographs and moving pictures the entire band of 125 men was taken to the Hotel Pennsylvania so as to be near our special train…

PJ conducting for publicity, on the roof of the Pennsylvania Hotel

The cars of our train are all Pullmans and given to us by the New York Central… I have the drawing room ‘Orlando’...

April 22 – 1919 – Pittsburgh, PA. In the morning we had a parade and after a concert in the afternoon we had a swim in the big town Natatorium. In Pittsburgh the Chamber of Commerce gave me a room to rent in and dress and they also placed at my disposal a fine Locomobile car with flying flags. I am sure the citizens thought I was old Black Jack Pershing himself!

Wednesday April 23 – 1919 – Arrived in Columbus, Ohio in early morning. A Mr. Charles Janes, President of the Athletic Club, placed a Ford car at my disposal…

The people out here are wonderfully patriotic… I drove in a car preceding the band, men stood with uncovered heads and instead of a victory arch they have huge embankments of flowers at all the main crossings in memory of those who fell in battle. Our concert at night in Memorial Hall was a great success, over 5000 people who were turned away and there must have been that many in the hall. It was about the most enthusiastic audience I have ever seen. We did the Tchaikovsky 1812 overture and as there was a large organ in the hall I played along and it was especially effective for the old Russian National Anthem theme at the close of the work.

Thursday April 24 -1919 – Cincinnati. In the afternoon we opened the baseball season at the large field here and were given seats of honor for the game. However there is a great pro-German population here and we did NOT get an enthusiastic reception. The chairman of the local Victory Loan was most obnoxious and took out Possell the flutist and Ross the drum major and got them terribly drunk. A parade at night and ‘tout suite’ to the train!

Saturday April 26 -1919 – Indianapolis. Captain Fisher and I were entertained royally at the Columbia Club. This was in sharp contrast to Louisville, where we could not be entertained at the club because Fisher is a Jew and they would not invite me without my Superior Officer. Indianapolis is a wonderful city and the position of the Columbia Club is ideal for it overlooks a most wonderful circle larger than our Columbus Circle or anything we have in New York…

They’ve given us a great welcome, about 60 automobiles met on our train and took us sightseeing. I was the guest of General Smith who took me in his Packard to the huge auto race track about four miles out of town. At night I conducted the concert before an audience of over 3000 people. Fisher has given me a good share of the concerts to conduct…

Wed. April 30 – 1919 – Such a busy day in Detroit, MI. I conducted two concerts… After this we had a panoramic photo made of the entire band.

[May 1: that was the first ‘Red Scare.’ There were two deaths, forty-plus accidents, and 116 people arrested:]

Thursday May 1 – 1919 – May Day in Cleveland, Ohio.

We arrived at the Hotel Statler, Cleveland in the morning. After I cleaned up I started to go to the Armory to arrange for the concerts, as Captain Fisher has left us to go to Washington DC where we shall meet him later. However in leaving the hotel in the AM a pot of flowers was thrown at me from above. The pot just missed me but I was covered with dirt. I was hissed by persons on the streets and one woman stopped me and asked if I knew why we fought Germany. ‘President Wilson had better get back to the US or we will have a red flag on the White House.’ In the afternoon things got worse and the town was placed under the protection of the State Militia. Tanks were used in the streets and I actually saw one woman ground to pieces by a tank. In the midst of the rioting I received an order from the Commanding General of the area to give up the concerts and leave town at once which we did under the protection of  the Militia, so we got on our train and started east.

Monday May 5 – 1919 – Boston. …After this I rushed back and then started our parade preceded by mounted police instead of my marching band – they provided an open car for me to ride in at the very head of the line. We reached the State House and I was presented to Governor Calvin Coolidge and a State Senator… We played to thousands and thousands at that spot and after some more marching we stopped at the City Hall where I was presented to Mayor James Michael Curley who, among other remarks, made some uncomplimentary ones about Governor Coolidge.

Tuesday May 6 – 1919 – Checked in early to the hotel Kimball in Springfield Mass. In the morning the local Victory Loan Committee gave me a sort of breakfast-lunch attended by the entire committee. There was much drinking and one of the men expressed regret that they could not include me, as Massachusetts is very strict about giving liquor to men in uniform. However they said that they would give me a highball glass of ginger ale. When I started drinking it I noticed a task not at all like ginger ale and discovered that they had poured me a highball glass full of straight bourbon whiskey.

Sunday May 11 – 1919 – Working my head off getting a payroll for the men and issuing passes. The payroll is difficult for it involves insurance and allotment. Washington is like an old mausoleum and the War Department clerks are so stupid. Saturday I went to a special meeting in the Congress where they were debating and discussing ‘Shall the soldier be issued one shirt or two and should he wear one while the other is being washed in an exchange laundry or should he have but one and wash that when he can and thereby making use of the 1/6 of the unconsumed portion of the cooks ten-day ration of soap…’

Friday June 15 – 1919 – End of Word War 1 Diaries. Glory be to God!

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A year and a half before he died he wrote a letter to the Veterans Administration. It’s similar to letters he’d been writing once every decade, since WW1 was over: where are all the benefits? 

He’d received a check for the ‘World War Adjusted Compensation Act’ – $1565. But so what! My Daddy had followed the rules, seen and heard thousands of bloody deaths, of bullets and bombs and gas masks. Once he spent all night listening as ‘987 shell explosions’ were counted… and to me he seemed so SAD: there’s always a certain sadness when he’s talking about WW1. Yes, ‘Washington is like an old mausoleum and the War Department clerks are so stupid.’

Much better the elegant awards he received from France – there were many, many of them!

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